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4 ways to close more deals
(4 min read) How Nathan Kennedy applies wisdom from his sales background to close more brand deals and get repeat business. Featuring beehiiv, Notion, and HubSpot.
Avi Gandhi
May 03, 2024
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The personal finance Creator who loves to make deals
I still think of myself as a salesman - like, “You want a post? Okay, how about three? How's a bundle like this?” Upsell, upsell, upsell!
I actually love that part of what I do.
Personal finance Creator Nathan Kennedy aka New Money Nate describes his content message as “Get Rich Slowly”. He so strongly believes in this principle that he’s even getting his Accredited Financial Counselor Certification to increase his credibility.
Before starting his Creator journey, though, Nate was in Sales. He’s brought that mindset to his business as a Creator, and there’s quite a bit we can take away from his approach to apply to our own businesses.
Let’s get into it!
The Business
.Highlights.
.Breakdown.
.Observations.
I try to make it as easy for brands to work with me as possible…it takes 10-15 minutes for me to talk to them, and it could lead to thousands of dollars more.
Nate really leverages his background in Sales to drive his brand business. Since we covered his process in a previous article, let’s unpack some additional lessons Creators can learn from him to apply to their own businesses.
Here are 4 things Nate does to close more brand deals!
Try hard to overdeliver
A lot of the partners that I have are repeat partners.
Repeat business isn’t easy to accomplish - but it’s worth doing. As a successful manager friend always says: “The best business is repeat business”.
TikTok Creators in particular have a bad rep for overcharging - like a brand will pay $10,000 and the video will get 5,000 views.
I always try to put a lot of effort into not having that happen. I really want to deliver, whether it's impressions or conversions or whatever they want, because I'm not just thinking about the first deal: I'm thinking about the next one and the next one after that.
Here’s the math on why repeat business is worth the effort:
Let’s say you negotiate HARD and beat up the buyer to get $2000 when they wanted to pay $1000 - literally getting DOUBLE the offer. That’s great! But if you don’t overdeliver, that $2000 is all you’ll get.
If you negotiate a reasonable increase from $1000 to $1250, and then overdeliver against whatever their goals are, they’ll come back for more.
On the next deal, they might offer $1250 but agree to $1500. Now you’ve made $1250 + $1500 = $2750 - 37.5% more than with one big deal.
And what if you get a 3rd deal? A 4th?
The math doesn’t lie. Do everything you can to get that repeat business.
Keep buyers warm through relationship management
A lot of it is maintaining warm leads. Maybe an agency and I did a campaign last year, so I'll check in and say, “Hey, how's everything going?”
I put a lot of effort into keeping up with these different agencies and representatives of these brands.
If you’ve worked with someone before and it went well, they’re more likely to hire you in the future because they already know and trust you.
However, if they don’t REMEMBER that they know and trust you, then they won’t hire you.
The old truism “out of sight, out of mind” is especially relevant in today’s fast-paced, information-overloaded world.
Don’t stay out of sight. Every time you work with someone and it goes well, set a calendar reminder that repeats every 3-6 months to send a friendly check-in email.
You may end up getting some more business out of it!
Plant partnership seeds early and frequently
If there's a brand that I really like, I'll reach out to them. If they're not ready yet, I’m kind of just planting seeds.
This has happened, where six months later, eight months later, they come back and say, “Hey, we actually have some dollars.”
You don’t get 100% of what you don’t ask for.
You also don’t get 100% of what you do ask for - but you might get something.
So if you want to work with a brand, find their influencer marketing person on LinkedIn and reach out. You never know if the seed will germinate - for Nate, some certainly have.
Push back for mutual benefit
You often hear from Creators stuff like, “They told me to say it, so I did and it didn't do well, and now they're coming to me and getting mad at me for that.”
The way I think about it is: If a video underperforms, [the brand] is going to look at me no matter whose fault it is. It's up to me to push back and make that well-known - to say, “Hey, let's make some really great creative here that will perform!”
If you want to build trust, have a partnership succeed, and get that repeat business, then sometimes it’s in your client’s best interest to have a difficult conversation.
Saying no is hard, especially when someone is paying you - but if you explain that you’re saying no because you believe that your vision will perform better than theirs in service of their goals, they’re very likely to listen.
Poll
Have you ever had to have a difficult conversation with a client or partner? |
The Stack
Email - beehiiv
There’s obviously a lot of hype around beehiiv…
I looked at the pricing for Mailchimp and ConvertKit, and I just really like how with beehiiv, up to a certain amount of emails, you're not charged for the size of your list.
Affiliates - Direct-to-company + Impact + Credit Card Genius
As we learned from previous guests The Credit Brothers, credit card affiliates is a complicated business.
I'm technically a sub-affiliate, so Credit Card Genius would be an affiliate to, say, AmEx, and then I'm a sub-affiliate to them. They handle a lot of the compliance and legal issues. Obviously, I have my disclosures and things like that, but they basically eat a lot of “you-know-what” for me, and I can just focus on driving traffic to them.
Project Management - Notion + HubSpot
I'll use HubSpot for a lot of the deal stuff. I'm not on it all the time, like most sales guys are, but I definitely use it to track my deals, revenue, things like that.
Honestly, the biggest insight for me is to see Deals Lost. I'll look at that to motivate me a little bit - I'll see that number at the top of the screen, like total revenue theoretically out the door, and it's like, “Oh, geez. Okay, let's go out and get it today!”
If the behavior Nate is describing sounds alien to you, let me explain. HubSpot is a CRM - customer relationship management - software, which lets him track everything deal-related including brands, the people at brands, the status of his conversations, the potential value of his deals, and - yes - the deals lost and deals won.
At most companies, the sales employees stare at their CRM all day, because it tells them who to call, what the conversation status is, and how well they’re tracking to hitting their goals and getting their bonuses.
For sales people, those bonuses are often their primary compensation, so sales performance directly affects how much they make - yet another way Nate’s professional experience informs and aligns with his Creator approach.
Finances - QuickBooks + CPA + RBC + Canadian credit cards + AmEx Cards
Nate is in Canada, so his financial resources are different than in the US.
I'm a big AmEx fan across most things. I just wish I was in the United States for credit cards, because they're a lot better there overall. First of all, there's a much wider spread across different perks, like lounge access and sign up bonuses - just much more variety.
Team / Operations - Preditor (videographer + editor) + content manager + Thumbnail contractor
Video Production - Previously Sony ZV1, not sure what Preditor uses + GVM Softbox Key Light + Aperture fill light + Rode mics + Notion for scripting
I do use Notion a lot with respect to scripts, editing, my newsletter, things like that. Some of their AI capabilities are really great, like editing - it just helps me clean up the grammar, proofread, whatever. It’s super handy and inexpensive, and though I could do ChatGPT, I just like how Notion is where all my stuff is.
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Written by Avi Gandhi, edited by Melody Song,
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