How to Successfully Pitch Collaborations to Companies

And get paid doing it

Many of us are on the hunt for side hustles and extra income. In one survey, a majority 57 percent of American respondents reported having a side hustle of some kind.

Unfortunately, nearly 40 percent of these side hustlers made less than $50 per month.

But here’s some good news for beginners and all of you putting in work but making $50 or less per month: side hustles have a way of springing out from other side hustles, resulting in a sort of “inception” of side hustles. A side hustle within a side hustle.

This is what leads to financial independence — when your side hustles compound and combine to become far more than just side hustles and form a business.

And this usually occurs in an exponential fashion. Meaning, your side hustles will usually start slow, but once you start seeing significant growth it catches like wildfire.

In my case, this inception of side hustles turned out to be creating YouTube and TikTok content for businesses and brands stemming from my YouTube channel.

And after securing dozens of collaborations with other businesses, I can say I’ve learned a thing or two about pitching to companies.

And I share them below.

How I Started Pitching to Companies

I’ve mentioned previously that when my fiancée and I started our YouTube channel in 2018, I wasn’t expecting to make any money. All I wanted to do was learn a new skill or two.

So I definitely wasn’t expecting businesses to pay us to create content for them.

But as our channel grew (and I’m talking only 1,000 subs at first) businesses ended up reaching out to us for sponsorship deals. And while we didn’t take many of these because they usually only offered us free products in exchange for sponsored content on our channel, it opened my eyes to a new way of making money.

I learned that businesses were in desperate need of content for their social media sites.

But, obviously, I didn’t want to do it for free or a free product (unless it was a very expensive item). I wanted to get paid.

And to make this a reality, I know I had to start reaching out to companies directly.

Here’s my process:

1. Find businesses to work with: You can find businesses to work with in your industry through a Google or LinkedIn search, creator-business connection platforms, and more.
2. Find “person-of-interest”: The POI is any person relating to the content or social media manager. This is the person that controls the content posted to the company’s social media sites. Sometimes you won’t be able to find the person who directly controls the decisions, and in these cases you need to find the next closest person to that individual who is likely in their ear.
3. Research company content & social media trends: This research is so that you can get an idea of the type of content the company is already posting and what trends are happening right now that you can capitalize on. Oftentimes, your ideas will stem directly from this phase.
4. Create content idea: Once you know the business, the person of interest, and the trends going around, it’s time to combine these and brainstorm some content ideas. It’s not that hard once you do it a few times, especially when you’re utilizing trends. This is because they provide you with ideas to build off of that companies will think is extremely clever. This is my favorite part of the entire process, and, if I’m being totally honest — and I can do this because of my partner-in-crime (fiancée) who I run these channels with — this step is sometimes the only aspect that I’m involved with nowadays. My fiancée keeps in touch with the companies and brands, and I come up with ideas to pitch to them.
5. Make Your Pitch: For this part, I like to blend the personal with the meat and bones. Similar to when companies hire new employees, they typically like to see that you have a connection to the company or product. So, for example, when we pitched to a luggage company, we noted that we are avid travelers and would love to work with an amazing company like themselves. Then, because we knew they had a fairly popular TikTok channel, we pitched them a TikTok idea capitalizing on a trend that incorporated their suitcase in a clever way. They loved the idea and ended up paying us $500 for one TikTok.

Pitching To Companies

As you can see, pitching to companies involves more than just an email.

It requires that you come to the table with something they can work with, and not just say “Hey, I’d love to work with you. Lmk.”

The “pitching to companies” process I listed above involves 4 initial steps before even writing the email up. By following this process, you show the company right away that you’re not going to waste their time and you increase the likelihood of your idea being accepted — and you getting paid.

I hope this helps for when you pitch your next company! Good luck.