Bryan McAnulty [00:00:00]:

Have you ever wondered how to turn your social media presence into a full fledged profitable business? In 2024, being an influencer seems like the dream life. Getting paid to do what you love, creating fun content, working on your own schedule, and getting free stuff from brands. But with over a 157,000,000 micro influencers who are competing for attention, how do you stand out? Well, today's guest, Kristin Bosque, knows exactly how to do it. Kristin is a creator monetization coach and the founder of Your Social Media. After selling her first business for a100 $1,000 at just 25 years old, she since generated over 500,000 as a micro influencer. If you're an aspiring influencer, a creator looking to land brand sponsorships, or someone eager to build a successful online business, then listen up. Kristen is gonna share her secrets on influencer marketing, tips for new influencers, and how she's building her impressive business empire.

Kristen Bousquet [00:00:49]:

Price is not the only thing you can negotiate. For me, when I am getting that back from a brand where they say, oh, you know, we'd love to, but, like, our budget is only this much. I really love to give, like, option a, b, and c, and they're all kind of, like, different packages based around that number that they gave.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:09]:

Today, we're gonna learn how to grow your audience on social media in 2024, how to become a micro influencer and find brands that will sponsor you, and how to price yourself as a micro influencer. Welcome to the creator's adventure, where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about building a business. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, Kristen. Welcome to the show.

Kristen Bousquet [00:01:38]:

Thanks so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:41]:

Yeah. My first question for you is what would you say is the biggest thing either you did or you are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Kristen Bousquet [00:01:51]:

Oof. I honestly think that it's taken years for me to get to a point where I do feel like I have a lot of freedom with, Eligail's outside of my business. I've done a lot in my business to try and get as much of it on autopilot as possible, but also hiring out a team, I think, has been one of the most important things as well. A lot of people think that outsourcing is much more expensive and confusing than I think it really is. So that's been huge to to me to be able to have time for my socials, but also have time for me to do things like hang out with my dogs and read read books and all that fun stuff.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:35]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I think that's a really good point too that some people wait too long before they try to outsource something because they think it's gonna be so expensive and, like, you can outsource, like, 1 or 2 small things. Mhmm. And, it doesn't have to be, like, a full time job or something like that that you have for somebody. But giving yourself that time back either for your business or to spend time doing what you enjoy is, like, so worth it.

Kristen Bousquet [00:03:01]:

Yeah. I had this moment earlier this year where I realized that I was more of a manager in my business than I was the actual CEO of my company. And so I tried to, for a solid week or 2, kinda go through all of my tasks. And as I was doing things, I would write down, alright, does this need to be done by me or realistically can this be done by someone else? And everything that was on that list of someone else can probably do it are things that I ended up outsourcing. I think it was hard to find the right people at first, but once I did find the right people, now I'm just like, please take everything. You could do everything. It's fine with me.

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:40]:

So you sold your first business when you were 25 for a $100,000. Can you tell us more about kinda how you started as an entrepreneur and what were the valuable lessons you learned from that experience of selling a business?

Kristen Bousquet [00:03:55]:

Yeah. That was quite the experience. Definitely not something I had on my bingo card for being 25 and, living in a small town I grew up in, and I essentially started this company with, a friend of mine who we were best friends at the time. Everything was going really great until I found that the responsibilities weren't as equal as we had originally planned. And so I eventually got to a point where I didn't love going into work there every day, and I didn't really feel the same as I had felt about it when we originally started the company. And so I also wanted to move, down to Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm originally from Massachusetts. And I made the very difficult decision to sit down with my business partner and just kinda tell her how I was feeling and share that I wasn't interested in being, part of the company anymore, which was crazy after years of doing it together, and it was, you know, my baby.

Kristen Bousquet [00:04:53]:

So I was very sad to leave it, but, overall, I think that while that change was, like, very uncomfortable, there were so many learning experiences in there, and it definitely got me to where I am today. So I'm thankful. I don't regret it at all, but it was definitely quite an interesting experience trying to not only, like, pay attention to my friend's feelings and what her future was gonna look like, but also selfishly be, you know, like, worrying about myself as well. Quite the interesting balance.

Bryan McAnulty [00:05:27]:

Yeah. So what kind of company was that? What did it do?

Kristen Bousquet [00:05:30]:

Mhmm. So it was called the beauty studio. So we did hair, makeup, and photography. We also had a boutique up the front of the store, so people could book us for we did a lot of weddings where they would basically, like, book us for the hair and makeup, and then we would follow along to the wedding and also shoot the wedding. So it was a lot of working on the weekends, a lot of females in one space for a very long time, and I think it kinda just got got a little overwhelming for me.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:00]:

So now what you do is you define yourself as a micro influencer. Can you explain a little bit of what you would say a micro influencer is, and how did how did you get into that from what you were doing before?

Kristen Bousquet [00:06:16]:

Yeah. I during my time working at my previous company, I was always posting on Instagram, but just, like, for fun, I never thought anything would come out of it, but it was a really nice creative outlet for me. And I eventually got to a point where I started landing brand partnerships, very low ticket brand partnerships, but I it was something, and I said, oh my gosh. Wow. I could actually get paid for this. It's kind of crazy. And I eventually once I left the company, I said, you know, I sold this company. I have the financial backing of this of selling the company.

Kristen Bousquet [00:06:50]:

When am I ever gonna have an opportunity like this again to really go all in on something that I have no idea if it's gonna make me, like, legitimate money to live off of? And so I decided it was a a calculated risk, I guess. I felt more comfortable doing it with that financial backing. So I started to just be a little bit more intentional about what I was creating online, and also started to spend a little bit more time actually trying to build my audience there and be a little bit more strategic. And that was back in 2020, beginning of 2020. And so since then, I have still I still consider myself a micro influencer. I have 20, 26,000 followers on Instagram, I think 28 on TikTok. But I'm very small in the grand scheme of things. But it's been still such a great opportunity for me to work with different brands in a sponsored capacity, but also, you know, have a a coaching service as well.

Kristen Bousquet [00:07:51]:

That's a huge part of my business today. So it kind of organically transitioned into it as something that I was already doing, and then I said, let's just go full all in on it and kinda see what happens, but thankfully, it worked out. Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:08:05]:

So, yeah, we saw how you talk a lot on your profile about, like, sharing what you're learning about brand deals and and content like that. So I'm curious your thoughts. Like, first of all, you've done Instagram for a while, and what Instagram was, like, 10 years ago versus now is very, very different. And, also, like, I think even, like, the idea of influencers and sponsored content and the reach of content has changed in a lot of different ways. And I personally think that with more and more content being created, there is in some way, creators are seeing less views on their content than they did maybe a few years ago. But in another way, because all the algorithms are getting so good, it's like the people who are seeing your content are really your audience. And so it's not, like, just getting shown to random people as much. Like, you can be sure, like, if it only got shown to a few hundred people, like, it's it is your audience of those few hundred people.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:09]:

And so in some ways, I think, like, that's a very good thing, and creators kinda have to be come more comfortable with just getting less views. But I guess what would you say for somebody, like, starting out today? They're trying to create content. What are some things that they can do to kind of maybe stand out and grow? And also, like, what are things they should keep in mind?

Kristen Bousquet [00:09:32]:

Yeah. That's such a great point. I think for anyone who's listening that has been a creator or has even just been on social media creating any sort of content, whether it's serious or not, since since Reels came out, since 2020. I mean, it is a very different ballgame. I think it's been difficult for myself as well as, again, other creators who have been doing this a while to get more comfortable with the fact that we definitely do see a lot less views. I even compare it to COVID when everyone was home. Obviously, like, a lot more people were on their phones. Now we're back to, like, quote, unquote normal life, and we are on our phones a little bit less than we were when we were stuck home all day.

Kristen Bousquet [00:10:14]:

So even just that shift has been very interesting to deal with. When it comes to standing out, I honestly think that your unique perspective is truly the only thing at this point that is going to make you different than anyone else. There's a creator doing literally every possible different thing you could think of. Like, it's it's very hard at this point, I think, to be the only person doing something. So I think it's more your unique perspective that is what actually makes you different. And typically, when I find that I'm following someone, you know, just as a a user, when I'm scrolling through, if I go and tap follow for someone, it's always someone that is, like, making me, like, stop and think. They're not saying the same things that I hear everyone else saying. It's someone that says something that I'm like, I never thought about it that way.

Kristen Bousquet [00:11:03]:

And then I'm more curious to kind of get their unique perspective and and dive deeper into that. I know for me, that's been a huge change in my business, from 2020 to, I would say, beginning of 2022. As a creator coach, I was creating a lot of content about, you know, here's how you pitch brands to land partnerships, just because, like, that's what we were all doing. You know? Like, that was the only way we were ever taught to do it. That's what we were all doing on a daily basis, and so I just taught people what I was doing. And then I realized there was a point where most of those pitches were not getting responses, and I was like, it's interesting that we're all teaching this thing that, like, I don't even know is actually working as well as we want it to. And so I shifted, the way that I do all of my brand outreach, to a method that I now call the anti pitch method, and that's all I teach now. And I find that a lot of people who come to me, they're really hung up on that.

Kristen Bousquet [00:12:03]:

You know? Like, that's the first thing that they say to me. That's what makes me stand out is because I'm teaching people to do things very differently than all of my peers are. And I also am kind of trying to make being a creator as sustainable as possible because I'm sure anyone listening who is a creator knows that it's a lot of hard work and energy and time. So my goal is to actually help you work less, which I feel is very different from a lot of other creators. So finding whatever that thing is that fuels you, but that's maybe a different perspective from a lot of other people, I think, truly helps you stand out and find kind of, like, your tribe, given that, again, we don't have a ton of reach all of the time. So you want to make sure that the people that you are reaching, like, what you're saying really resonates with them.

Bryan McAnulty [00:12:56]:

Yeah. I think that's great advice, and I would add to it that it's not just your unique perspective on something, but also, like, everything about you. You should let that show through.

Kristen Bousquet [00:13:08]:

Yes.

Bryan McAnulty [00:13:09]:

And I think the, like, common misconception or, like, default mode of a lot of people is to think, well, how can I adjust this part of my personality to be more normal or more like what I see with everybody else? But you shouldn't do that. You should, like, lean into what are all the things about me, and that is what will help you actually connect with people better because there's people looking for someone, like, with your personality, and they want to to see and connect with that personality.

Kristen Bousquet [00:13:39]:

Oh, I could not agree with that more. I think that's one of the things that when I'm working with creators on content strategy specifically, we talk about it a lot. I'm just like, I I look at your content. I don't I don't see you. I see all, like, your tips, your education, your cute content, and everything, but but I'm not actually understanding, like, who you are as a person. Again, that's, like, another change I've made in the last couple of years. Outside of social media, a huge part of my life is animal rescue. We always have fosters in our house.

Kristen Bousquet [00:14:09]:

I am an event coordinator at a rescue, that I volunteer at. And so it felt so crazy for me for so long to kind of, like, suppress that part of me on socials because I was like, oh, these people are here for social media. They don't care about, like, my animal rescue stuff. And once I started sharing that, I found that I actually gained a lot more followers because there were a lot of people who were, you know, specifically loved animals that were now coming to me as well, but also just gaining such a better connection with the people that I already had in my ecosystem, because they really were able to, I guess, like, relate to me more and feel like we have more of a human to human connection. But it's so interesting to think about now that if I never shared that, you know, part of my life, people would not know about it. And I'm I might not have that to kinda set me apart, but, also, I would still be trying not to incorporate that into my content even though it feels like I can still organically do that now.

Bryan McAnulty [00:15:11]:

Yeah. That's a good point. So I have a few questions about, like, the brand sponsorship. So let's say somebody now has built this audience, and they're ready to start trying to work with some brand deals. So where does a creator usually find these? Are a brand like, will brands usually start reaching out to the creator? Do does a creator have to start reaching out to the brands first, like, when they're first kind of approaching this idea? And then what do you do after that point of contact with the brand

Kristen Bousquet [00:15:46]:

to, move forward? So to kinda give you, like, the very, base level on partnerships and how they come about, I guess there's kind of 2 different avenues. It would be either where you're reaching out to the brand or the brand is reaching out to you. I definitely find that brands are reaching out to creators that are a little bit more established, or even if they haven't shown that they're doing a lot of partnerships before, like, you can still go to their page and understand, like, okay, this person's actually, like, a professional. This person's taking it seriously as people say, and it's clear that you're more of a creator than you are just, like, random person posting on the Internet. So I do find that there is some level of, I guess, professionalism or, legitimacy, I guess, that brands are looking for when they're gonna be reaching out to you. Because, obviously, if they're gonna be, you know, counting on you to create this content for them, they wanna make sure they have someone who's actually taking it seriously. And, also, when it comes to to inbound partnerships too, I think the more you can lean into your mission or your niche or whatever you wanna call it, I know there's a people have a whole thing to say about niches. When you are leaning into that, I think your target audience is so much more clear, and so it's a lot easier for brands to reach out to someone who has a very obvious niche and say, oh, cool.

Kristen Bousquet [00:17:13]:

If we pay this person, we're very likely gonna get our money back because look at who their audience is. They have the audience we're looking for directly. So when it comes to inbounds, I think those are 2 things to kinda check off. And the other avenue we can kinda go down is out bounds or when you're kind of reaching out to the brand, to to pitch a partnership, and there's so many different ways that you can do this. The most obvious being pitch emails. We've again, if you scroll TikTok, you're very likely if you're on creator TikTok, you're seeing here's how my pitch script looks, here's how I pitch all these brands, here's these emails of brands you can pitch. So pitching is a huge part of being a creator, but this is actually something that in the last couple of years, I've completely shifted the way that I do this. And my brand outreach is more about communicating with the brands and, creating, like, a real genuine connection with them before I am telling them to pay me 100 or 1,000 of dollars.

Kristen Bousquet [00:18:14]:

The analogy I use is kind of like you're going on a first date with someone and you're automatically asking them to move in. That's kinda how a cold pitch feels. And so I very often will try to build those connections with the people at the brand before I try and even talk about a partnership. And that's what I call the anti pitch method. Outside of that, you can also use influencer marketing platforms. So there are a ton of them. If you go on Google, you type in influencer platform, you will find a bazillion pages of results. Influencer platforms are a really good way for you to basically have a marketplace of partnerships that are posted by brands where you can kinda come in and submit your your proposal to them to say, hey.

Kristen Bousquet [00:19:00]:

I'd love to be a part of this. Here's what my rates look like. And then the brand goes and and chooses creators from that list. However, with those platforms, I think sometimes it is a little difficult because there's a lot of people typically applying to a lot of those partnerships, and it's you don't get a lot of opportunities to make yourself stand out, you know, because you're kinda just saying here are my rates and submitting yourself, and it's up to the brand to do their homework from there. A lot of partnership platforms don't necessarily give you the opportunity to, you know, say, here's here's who I am, here's what I do, and here's why I wanna work with you. So I have, like, a love hate relationship with those, but, personally, I think it's best if you can create those really genuine partnerships with the people that you wanna work at at the brand so that you're a little bit more top of mind and they can just do the reaching out to you versus you having to spend, like, all this time and energy actually reaching out to the brand.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:58]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I think the the marketplaces for influencers are it it seems like they came they came about and it was like, okay. That's cool. This solves a problem that can connect the influencers and the brands. But I feel like it doesn't really solve what it's supposed to, very well yet, because, yeah, the influencers, have trouble actually getting in touch with the brands. Mhmm.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:24]:

There's it ends up being just all of these influencers, and it's kind of hard to go through. And I think from the brand side, it's also kinda difficult for the brands to even figure out, well, who here is really, like, our target, like, content creator? So, with the anti pitch method, like, how how does that work? Can you go into some more detail of, like, what would that actually look like to, connect with the brand?

Kristen Bousquet [00:20:48]:

Yeah. So the anti pitch method is more you basically being able to have, like, coffee with the brand versus an influencer platform might be, like, you raising your hand to chat with the brand in a room of everyone else who's raising their hand. So the idea behind the anti pitch method is it's really supposed to be just more of a direct line to this brand. It's very heavy on LinkedIn. I think a lot of people do not utilize LinkedIn, a lot of creators specifically, or they're scared of it, don't wanna add another platform to, like, where all these places that they have to post. Like, it feels very much like a chore. But LinkedIn is truly one of the places where I've been able to make the strongest relationships with, plenty of different companies or digital media outlets. And it's a really great algorithm, especially if you're used to the Instagram, algorithm.

Kristen Bousquet [00:21:42]:

So basically, the way the anti pitch method works, it's a 4 step process. The first step is where you're kind of warming up the brands, we call it, where maybe you're sharing, like, some organic content about the brands, like, tagging them in stories. Maybe you are, you know, sending them a reply to their Instagram story that they posted. You're commenting on things. You're essentially just showing them, hey. Hi. I exist. I enjoy the brand.

Kristen Bousquet [00:22:10]:

I'm already watching the content. I'm already tagging you guys, already using it. And so it kind of gives you a few of these little touch points instead of you just very kind of, like, aggressively getting into the email saying, hey. I love your brand. Come pay me now. So it's it's a nice organic way to start a relationship. And then from there, what I typically do is I go on to LinkedIn and I try and find the people that actually work at the brands that I want to partner with. So I'm actually looking at people versus just going to the brand page and emailing, you know, their messaging the brand directly.

Kristen Bousquet [00:22:45]:

I'm actually emailing or messaging the people at the brands. And there, I'm really just trying to not necessarily pitch myself. I'm more just trying to introduce myself and, again, show them, like, hey. I exist. I'm watching what you guys are doing. You're doing a great job. Here's things I love that you've done, etcetera. And I'm using that as a point to just say again, hi.

Kristen Bousquet [00:23:05]:

I exist. And, hopefully, at this point, maybe they've already seen your name a few times from you doing that warm up process. Then there's, I guess, kind of a few different ways that it can go from here. A lot of the times when I'm kinda sending that intro message to a brand, they're actually responding, and now we're in the DMs on LinkedIn. And so we're able to kind of, like, have this one on one space that we're chatting, And I very often will ask to get on an intro call where I can share more about myself and I can hear what the brand is working on so that it's easier for me to kind of tailor what I'm going to recommend to them, in terms of how we might be able to work together. Or if I am going to, maybe they're working on things that I I just can't help with or I'm not aligned with. That's kind of the best case scenario. Other option is maybe you send that connection request to the brand and they don't respond to the message.

Kristen Bousquet [00:23:59]:

At this point, I just kind of continue that warm up process, but I actually do it on LinkedIn. So I'm more just watching, you know, kind of what that person is posting, organically interacting with them. Patience is definitely a very important part of this as it is with any other form of brand outreach. Sometimes I'll be able to land partnerships in, you know, a couple weeks from this method. Sometimes it might take me 6 months or a year. So it's really just about me continuously showing up to show the brand that I'm loyal, and then hopefully, eventually, it gets to that point where, again, we can kind of chat. I can hear more about what they're working on and see if we do have something that might be able to brew from there.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:39]:

Yeah. And I can share, like, from the brand perspective, I think somebody watching or listening to this might say, wait a second. You're gonna post content and, like, mention them, but, like, isn't that what you want them to pay you for?

Kristen Bousquet [00:24:52]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:53]:

Yeah. And so, like, aren't they gonna say, oh, well, I don't have to pay her anymore because now she already did it, so we're we're done. But it doesn't work like that. So, like, the brand is glad that they see that you're posting content already, and that gives them this this good window into what you're doing that you understand their brand and is, like, again, showing, like, some of that professionalism that, like, okay. This person can make a video like this. It's not like I'm gonna reach out to her and say, can you make me this video? And then she has no idea of, like, how to go about it. It's gonna take months months before anything gets posted. So all of that's really helpful, and the brand actually does want to work with and engage with the creators who are actually talking about them already.

Kristen Bousquet [00:25:36]:

Yeah. One of the things that I always note here when I am teaching anti pitch is the difference between integrated and dedicated. So, you know, like you said, we don't we don't wanna work for free as creators. Right? Like, we want the brands, of course, to to hire us for that content. And so very often, what I'm doing is creating more organic integrated content where I might be just kind of, like, quick tagging that brand in a story, or maybe I'm saying here are 5 things that are on my desk that help run my business and I'm tagging, like, a few different brands, but it's not what I would call a dedicated post where the entire post is dedicating to me advertising that product. So in that case, like, that's what I wanna get paid for where I'm saying this is the product, this is how I use it, these are the benefits, here's where you can buy it, here's why you should buy it. That's the type of content that I wanna get paid for. So I think it's important to notice the difference between the two of those because there may be some brands who see that dedicated content or, like, cool.

Kristen Bousquet [00:26:38]:

She did her job already. Perfect. But I think when you're kind of again, just showing you're a loyal user of the brand, showing you understand the brand, and and even just kind of showing, like, hey. I'm willing to give you these free, like, shout outs because that's how much I love the product or the company and how, you know, dedicated I am to it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:59]:

Yeah. Yeah. So for a creator who's now wants to do some kind of brand deal like this, how do you advise a creator kinda determine what their prices should be in the market?

Kristen Bousquet [00:27:12]:

Yeah. This is I I, like, love and hate this question because I always as a very type a person, I always wanna give, like, a very actionable answer so that you can be, like, perfect. Here's the formula and run off with it. But I think pricing is absolutely more of an art than it is a science. I I feel like I see a lot of calculators online, and I've put my my handle into every single one of them to see what it comes out with, and they are all very drastically different, and very often very drastically different from what I actually do charge. So I don't think there is a perfect, answer to this. When I am kind of instructing creators that I work with, about pricing, Honestly, I tell them to do their research first of all, like, find creators who are sharing their rates online. There are so many of them that do, or get into a community.

Kristen Bousquet [00:28:05]:

We have a really great community social suite. We have a 160 creators in there. Anytime someone posts in our community forums and says, hey. I have this offer, you know, what should I charge for it? Everyone else kinda comes in and says, well, I would charge this or, you know, based off of what I've heard, this is what I would charge, and we all really help each other out, which is great. But I honestly think it's about finding a starting number from doing your research in all these different places and then just riding the wave to kinda see how brands are responding to it. So typically, if I find you know, like, if I'm having a conversation with a creator who's like, okay. Every time I send this rate, they automatically are accepting it. I know that that's probably a little bit too low and that rate the creator should change their rate higher, so that, hopefully, they're a little bit more in line because, typically, brands are gonna do a little bit of negotiating.

Kristen Bousquet [00:29:00]:

So instant acceptances typically for me means it's too low. If I find that I'm often not even getting to the point of negotiation, it might be too high. If brands are just like, sorry. You're way out of your our ballpark here. We can't even negotiate to a place that would feel fair to this rate. I know that's too high. So I think it's about balancing, between those 2 and trying to find a place where, like, maybe a brand is gonna negotiate a little bit, but not completely write you off. Yeah.

Kristen Bousquet [00:29:29]:

The other thing I think to remember too is, like, you are going to have a range versus one number that is the end all be all, and that's what you get paid from every brand that's very much not realistic. I have, for me, a number that I will always say this is what I wanna get paid. I also have a number that is this is the absolute lowest I would take. And then in a perfect world, this is what I would get paid. And I'm always trying to just land somewhere within that range. But every single brand I work with has a very different budget. Different times of year, they have different budgets. So, like, you have to just learn to be flexible, I think, for sure.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:08]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great advice. And I would say too, like, when you are pitching what your price is, if it's something, like, that the brand comes back to you and says, you know what? We can only afford, like, 50% of that. You don't necessarily have to just say, okay. Well, I guess I'm gonna give them that for half the price now. You can look at what you're actually gonna do for them and that kind of list of deliverables. And so, like, be prepared with that ahead of time because you can just say, okay.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:39]:

We can do that, but then it's not gonna include, like, this part or this part. And that way, you're able to negotiate with a brand without necessarily just dropping your prices. Yeah.

Kristen Bousquet [00:30:51]:

Yeah. No. I think that's a a great point and definitely something that I don't think a lot of people think about very often is, like, price is not the only thing you can negotiate. For me, when I am getting that back from a brand where they say, you know, we'd love to, but, like, our budget is only this much. So, for example, if if I was saying I wanna get paid $2,000 for a reel and a brand was like, well, we only have $1,000, I really love to give, like, option a, b, and c, and they're all kind of, like, different packages based around that number that they gave me. So if they say, okay, we can do a $1,000, my package a might be, like, $800 and it's, like, much lower on the deliverables. My package b might be at their rate and it might be, just a little bit under, you know, the deliverable, something that I'm still comfortable with. And then my package c is I always try and make it like the sweetest package where I'm packing it as much as I'm comfortable and it's just a little bit above their budget so that I can have more content that I'm, you know, partnering with them on.

Kristen Bousquet [00:31:56]:

But also they're feeling like they're, you know, they're getting such a sweet deal compared to what we had originally kind of tried to work out. So I think when you are presenting options like that, it's really nice because it gives someone something to choose from versus them being like, sorry. That option doesn't work. No. And, you know, they have a little bit more flexibility.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:17]:

Yeah. Yeah. So how do you see the role of micro influencers evolving in the next few years?

Kristen Bousquet [00:32:25]:

I think about this often, and I have such mixed feelings about it because I think that influencers are still so new in the grand scheme of things. I think specifically micro influencers have for a very long time kind of been, like, passed off as, like, oh, they don't have a lot of followers. But in the last maybe 2 years, I think a lot more brands have given a lot more attention to micro and nano influencers because they know that our the people that we have in our audience, because it's not a huge audience, we very likely can actually have relationships with all of them versus someone who has a 1000000 followers, and there's no way they're gonna know every single one of those people. So we very often, as micro or nano influencers, have better relationships with our audience or more intimate or personal relationships with our audience. And I think that that hopefully is a trend that will continue to be, I guess, interesting for for brands when they're asking to partner with creators.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:31]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that and probably more so that it's gonna be more reliable that the micro influencer has, like, the same niche and the real audience of that brand. Whereas, like, if there's an account with, like, millions of followers, like, yeah, some of the people are gonna be customers of that brand, but it's just so wide that it's, like, just kinda advertising to everybody.

Kristen Bousquet [00:33:53]:

Right. Exactly. I mean and that's one of the the reasons why I feel like I get into the conversations with people so many times about, you know, do you need to have a niche? And everyone likes to say, I don't wanna have a niche. I don't wanna fit in a, you know, in a box and be stuck here. But I think that's so important for you to at least have again some kind of mission that you're working towards so that people who can come to your page are gonna see it and go, oh, that's me. Like, that's perfect. I wanna be here. And then you actually know who your audience is and can use that as a negotiation tool when you're trying to get paid from brands.

Kristen Bousquet [00:34:26]:

You know, you're able to confidently say, I know exactly who my audience is, and I'm very confident they need your product. Right? Like, someone who has a 1000000 followers and post about a 1000000 different things might not be able to say that. And so you may actually, as a micro influencer, be able to make more sales than someone who is a macro influencer and has 100 of 1,000 or a 1000000 followers.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:51]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's a good point. Yeah. It's not just the the reach of the followers, but also, like, the the niche kinda can determine, like, on YouTube, for example, like, the the cost per thousand of, like, the ad revenue share because there's different kinds of businesses in these different niches and they're willing to pay different amounts to acquire customers based on what they're worth.

Kristen Bousquet [00:35:13]:

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, I think it's definitely at this point, like, a lot of brands that I have conversations with want more quality over quantity. And a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I don't even have 10,000 followers. I'm not gonna try and do any partnerships or anything. No one's gonna pay any attention to me. And I'm like, no, this is a great time.

Kristen Bousquet [00:35:30]:

Like, this is the time where you should be before you have a viral video and get huge, and then you have no idea who your audience is.

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:38]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's good advice. So I've got one more question for you, and that is, on this show, I like to have every guest ask a question to our audience. So if you could ask our audience anything, whether it's something you're curious about or just kinda wanna get everybody thinking about, what would that be?

Kristen Bousquet [00:35:54]:

I think as the most foundational step for anyone creating any sort of content, What is your unique value proposition? What is it that makes you different? What is the hill you will die on that you want your audience to feel exactly the same way about?

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:12]:

Awesome. Alright. Well, that was great. Before we get going, Kristen, where else can people find you online?

Kristen Bousquet [00:36:18]:

Yeah. Yeah. My DMs are always open. My Instagram, actually everywhere, is k b o u s q b o u s q, k boost. And we have our really great membership program of a 160 plus creators called Social Suite and a podcast that we release every Tuesday, new episodes with actionable tips for content creators to help them monetize their creator businesses.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:43]:

Alright. Awesome. Kristen, thanks so much.

Kristen Bousquet [00:36:45]:

Sweet. Thanks so much.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:46]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at creatorclimb.com. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights Platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US Central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at thecreatorsadventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.