Accidentally Influential

Nobody makes fun TikToks about this. Nobody DMs us asking about it. But your money systems matter more than almost anything else we talk about on this show if you want a sustainable career. This is the unsexy, essential episode: separating your money, setting aside for taxes, how you get paid, the fees eating your income, and the weekly habit that keeps it all from piling up. Standard disclaimer:...

We made over 1 million in brand deals and neither of us has ever hired a manager. Managers take 15 to 25% of every deal, and for educational creators specifically, we think there's a strong case for keeping that money and learning the job yourself. This episode breaks down the six things a manager does, why we've chosen not to outsource any of them, and how to build the systems to manage your own...

We got a deal to what we thought was the finish line. Waiting on the contract. Then it started falling apart. This is a real brand deal negotiation happening behind the scenes right now. We can't share the brand or the numbers, but we're walking you through every step: the initial offer, our counter, the six-month pause they proposed, the restructured deal that came back, and the call that changed...

We spend a lot of time teaching you how to pitch. This episode is the other side: how to set things up so brands come to you. Inbound is the highest-margin path in the creator economy, because when a brand reaches out, you're the target instead of one applicant in a pile. Neither of us has actively sought out a new brand partnership in a while, and this is why. What We Cover: How brands actually f...

We don't do gossip. But something happened in the creator space this month big enough that skipping it would be a disservice. Good Good Golf, a creator-led brand with four million followers across platforms, released a co-branded ad with Callaway depicting a man shoving a woman to the ground. Callaway ended a three-year partnership. Good Good lost a PGA Tour title sponsorship. Retailers pulled mer...

52% of creators have experienced burnout because of their careers. Nearly 2 in 5 have thought about quitting entirely. Most consistency advice assumes your life stays the same every week, and it doesn't. Today we're talking about your BAM: your bare ass minimum. The floor you commit to no matter what season you're in. Kate has been in BAM mode for two weeks and breaks down exactly what hers looks...

Most creators think making more money means landing more brand deals. It doesn't. 61% of creators leave 20 to 30% on the table through underpricing, which means the fastest path to more revenue is charging correctly for the deals you already have. Five things you're probably giving away for free. Grab a notebook. What We Cover: Ad rights: what they are, why 20 to 50% of your base rate per month is...

You're pitching. You're posting. You're doing what everyone told you to do. And still: nothing. Short, sassy, slightly-calling-you-out episode. Three specific things killing your chances of landing brand partnerships, pulled straight from the DMs we get from creators who say they're following all the advice and still hearing crickets. It's almost always one of these three. What We Cover: Killer 1:...

Adrian had 3,000 subscribers on YouTube and 25,000 followers on TikTok. He charged more for YouTube. Every brand said yes immediately, which he now knows means he undercharged. Eighteen months later YouTube is his single largest income stream. Our guest Adrian Vonarx is a print on demand educator and longtime listener of this show, and this conversation is genuinely one of the most tactical we've...

Four words from a brand: what are your rates? It's one of the most mishandled emails in the entire creator economy. And how you respond determines whether you land the deal at your value or fumble it before the negotiation even starts. Here's what most creators miss: that first email IS the negotiation. Whoever puts the first number down anchors everything that follows. Every counteroffer, every p...

59% of beginner creators are not monetizing their content. And for a lot of them, it's not because the opportunities aren't there. It's because of a quiet fear that taking money will make them a sellout. This episode was inspired by a real conversation Kate had with a creator friend who's seven months in, getting good inbound offers, and wrestling with the guilt of accepting them. So we're having...

When a brand pays you for a video, they are not buying the video. They're buying an outcome. The video is just the vehicle that gets them there. This is a whiteboard episode. Get your notebook out, because we're teaching you our GOAL framework: the four-step process we use to understand what a brand wants from a partnership, build a content strategy around it, deliver the results, and adapt when s...

Show Notes: We run a creator agency. We source creators for brand campaigns every week. And we can tell, every single time, when someone handed their script to ChatGPT instead of showing up themselves. It's not subtle. And it's costing creators deals they should have landed. In this episode we're getting honest about AI. Not whether to use it, because we both use it every day. But where it's activ...

Show Notes: 72% of creator pitches never get a response. Most people assume that means rejection. It usually doesn't. This is our second deep dive into the brand side of brand partnerships — and this time we're hearing from someone who has personally worked with over 300 creators and spent more than $3 million on creator collaborations. Yuliia Storozhuk leads influencer marketing and partnerships...

Your content is great, but you're stuck thinking like a creator instead of a business owner. In this episode Kate and Tea break down the 5 biggest mistakes keeping content creators from making real, predictable money — pulled directly from what they're seeing while sourcing creators for their own agency. If you've been posting consistently and still aren't landing the partnerships or rates you wan...

Creators who negotiate their rates earn on average 40% more than creators who don't. Kate hadn't renegotiated with one of her longest-standing brand partners in over a year. This episode is what happened next. This is a live one. We're walking through Kate's actual renegotiation process in real time — the data she pulled, how she structured the email, what she asked for, and the mindset it takes t...

Every article on the internet will tell you gifted collabs are a great starting point. We're here to tell you that depends entirely on who you are and what you're building — and for most education-based content creators, the answer is more complicated than "just say yes." This is a quick one but it will make you think twice before you hit accept on that next inbound. What We Cover: What a gifted c...

Tea got an inbound from a LEGIT agency. Established brand. Green flag email. $700 for zero extra work on a video she posted two and a half years ago. She almost said yes. Then she read the contract. In this episode Kate reads Tea's real brand deal contract out loud — clause by clause — and breaks down every red flag hiding inside language that was designed to be confusing on purpose. This isn't le...

A media kit won't land you a brand deal by itself. But not having one — or having the wrong things in it — will definitely cost you deals you should have gotten. This is Season 2 Episode 4 of Accidentally Influential, and this one has been a long time coming. We've mentioned media kits in episode four, episode five, episode 27, and basically every time we've talked about pitching brands. Today we'...

Followers are vanity. Community is currency. And nobody teaches that better than today's guest. Mackenzie Heflin is a storytelling specialist and content coach who went from losing her entire business overnight — her Facebook group got hacked and deleted at seven months pregnant — to rebuilding from scratch, going viral 27 days into a new storytelling strategy, and working with over 200 clients on...

If you've been posting consistently and still haven't landed a brand deal, your content might not be the problem. Your profile might be. This is Season 2, Episode 2 of Accidentally Influential — and this season is a full curriculum. Every episode builds on the last. If you haven't listened to Season 2 Episode 1 yet, start there — then come back here. Today we're walking you through our 5-point Bra...

You're Already Doing Brand Deal Work for Free (Here's How to Get Paid for It) Welcome to Season 2 of Accidentally Influential. We're calling this season Land It — because every episode this season is built around one goal: helping you land your first and ongoing paid brand partnerships. And we're starting with the episode we wish existed before we ever landed our first deal. Here's the thing nobod...

Season 2 of Accidentally Influential is here — and we're calling it:  Land It. Season 1 was the wake-up call. Season 2 is the plan. If you're an educator, course creator, coach, or digital product seller who's been building an audience and wondering how to monetize it beyond your own offers — this season was made for you. Because brand deals aren't just for lifestyle influencers with half a millio...

If your videos aren't stopping the scroll, this episode is for you. We brought on Sarah Weiss — speech therapist turned TikTok content and marketing expert, creator of Online Business Talk, and the woman we're officially crowning the Hook Queen — to break down exactly how educational content creators and online business owners can use TikTok to grow, sell, and attract brand deals without ever chas...

We're pulling back the curtain on every income stream we've built through content creation — from brand deals and affiliate income to UGC, digital products, and consulting. This is the episode we wish existed when we were starting out. Fair warning: Kate got her tax return the day before we recorded this and it sent us both into a spiral. In the best way. This is also episode 24, which means we've...