Episode 527: The Quickest Way to Become Profitable (+The Most Time Efficient Way to Pitch Brands) with Candice Ward

We cover information about different ways to diversify your revenue streams, including freelancing, affiliate work and coaching, but most importantly how to tap into sponsored work by pitching brands using Candice’s time efficient, strategic pitching method (i.e. the Strategic Pitching Approach).

Listen on the player on this page or on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

Takeaways

• Diversify Your Revenue Streams to Reduce Business Risk: Diversifying income sources helps mitigate risk and prevents burnout by ensuring you’re not solely reliant on one stream of revenue.

• Is Direct Pitching to Brands Effective? Sending targeted pitch emails and following up persistently can yield better results than relying solely on social media for brand collaborations.

• Practical Ways to Add Additional Revenue Streams: Explore various avenues such as freelance work, sponsored content, coaching, and digital product creation to diversify your income streams and maximize earning potential.

• The SPA (Strategic Pitching Approach) method for targeted and effective brand pitching: Use the Strategic Pitching Approach, focusing on personalized pitch emails and consistent follow-up, to increase the success rate of brand collaborations and revenue generation.

• Tailor Pitch Emails to Emphasize the Value Proposition to the Brand: Customize pitch emails to highlight how your content creation can directly benefit the brand’s goals, this will increase the likelihood of engagement and collaboration. 

• Focus on Quality Over Quantity to Maximize Conversion Rates: Prioritizing targeted and personalized pitches to a select number of brands increases the chances of successful collaborations and optimizes time and effort spent on pitching.

• The Confident Pitch Program: Candice’s comprehensive marketing plan designed to simplify the brand pitching process for influencers and content creators, offering modules on business planning, pitching formulas, negotiation strategies, and post-sales processes.

Resources Mentioned

Coaching Services

Pitch to Profit Workshop

Freebie: List of 10 brands with contacts to pitch

Freebie:  6 Strategies to Stand out to Brands

Transcript

Click for full script.

EBT527 – Candice Ward

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Megan Porta  00:38

How many unique revenue streams do you have as a food content creator? And did you know that the average millionaire has seven income streams? This is a little tidbit that Candice Ward brings to the interview she is the blogger over at Eat More Cake by Candice and the founder of the Confident Pitch Program. And one of her passions is just helping bloggers learn how they can diversify their income so that they’re not tied to one stream of revenue. Candice talks about different opportunities we can tap into that will help us add additional revenue to our businesses such as freelancing, affiliate work, coaching, creating digital products, taking photographs for restaurants or other bloggers. Her main expertise lies in getting sponsored work and working with brands. In the interview, she talks about how working with brands will make you profitable, the quickest. And she also talks through her pitching method and she even has a formula so if you want to do the math, grab out a pen and paper and you can follow along whether you want to work with brands or not definitely listen to this episode. I think you’ll be inspired either way, Candice delivers some serious gems in this episode. It is number 527 sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:02

Hello food bloggers. Are you looking to spice up your social media account with unique and exciting content? If you want that secret edge that makes you stand out in your niche, I might have the answer for you. Catharina can help you streamline your podcasting and social media content with audio editing, video editing or social media strategies. She specializes in working with food bloggers, tailoring her content creation packages to their needs. Whether you want to create something new like a gripping podcast, or if you want to refresh your social media strategies by creating scroll stopping video content for platforms like Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube, she has got you covered. If this sounds intriguing, get in touch with Catharina, go to eat blogtalk.com forward slash resources to get more information about Catharina services again, go to eat blogtalk.com forward slash resources and click on her link. Now let’s get back to the episode.

Megan Porta  02:59

Candice Ward is the founder of eat more cake dessert blog food photographer, educator and sales expert. Ken has spent over a decade in corporate sales and translated that experience to help other food content creators monetize and scale their businesses. She has coached hundreds of food content creators in her business course the confident pitch program. She is passionate about helping other food bloggers reach their full potential. 

Megan Porta  03:23

Candice, welcome back to Eat Blog Talk. How are you doing today? 

Candice Ward  03:26

I’m doing well. Thank you for having me.

Megan Porta  03:28

So good to have you back. This time around, we’re going to talk about diversifying your revenue. And why that matters for food bloggers and how they can start doing it and thinking through that. First, though, do you have another fun fact to share with us? 

Candice Ward  03:44

Yeah, I always think about kind of how I ended up in the world of food blogging and food photography and coaching. A lot of people might not know that I actually went to college and studied international relations, and I minored in business and Spanish. So my goal really was to kind of go into the Peace Corps after college and live overseas. And I really wanted to give back in some way. And then I obviously didn’t end up doing that. So I graduated in 2008 when the economy was different in a different state. So I took any job I could find and I landed in sales in the healthcare industry. And it’s been 15 years. 

Megan Porta  04:24

Yeah, I love hearing people’s stories about how they evolve into where they’re at now. So speaking of food bloggers like how they got into cooking and creating and producing content, writing recipes, from something that might be entirely different. Like I talked to people who started out as engineers or like, just something so wildly different. So I love learning that about you. So to frame our conversation today, would you mind talking us through just really quickly your blog because you are a food blogger as well as your other side of the business which is The Confident Pitch Program.

Candice Ward  05:02

Absolutely. I ended up food blogging, starting in, I guess 2015, I was in a sales job that was very boring to me, I was in software sales. And as a creative outlet, I started baking. And that kind of evolved into learning how to develop recipes. And I started making wedding cakes and doing local weddings, but then the pandemic hits, so I kind of had to shift gears and I wasn’t obviously making money that way. So I started learning food photography, and focusing more heavily on the blog. And so my blog is Eat More Cake by Candice, I, it’s really just a dessert focused blog, because dessert is what makes me happy. So I want to put more of that into the world. And then, as I started evolving, and working with brands, I had other food bloggers reaching out to me and asking, you know, how did you get that opportunity? How did you how did you start working with brands, and it kind of hit me that my sales experience kind of gave me a leverage to communicate with brands, effectively and more easily convert those into paid opportunities. And that’s when I ended up starting my coaching program, and then developing The Confident Pitch Program, which is my marketing and pitching course, because I wanted to make it really easy and simplify the sales process for food bloggers or food content creators to be able to work with brands as well. 

Megan Porta  06:25

And this is a pain point that a lot of us have. So thank you, Candace, for taking that part off our plates. I talked to so many food bloggers who just don’t want to deal with that part of it. So I love that this is actually a strength of yours, and that you’ve incorporated it into your business. And yeah, thank you. Yes. Okay. So through The Confident Pitch, I know that you help bloggers just pitch themselves to brands and make that money that they’re looking for maybe outside of an ad network or in addition to an ad network. Do you have thoughts about why diversifying revenue is really important to food bloggers?

Candice Ward  07:07

Yeah, I mean, often times when I am coaching other food bloggers, and sometimes I will say I use the term food content creator interchangeably, because I feel like we all identify differently, like some food bloggers identify as, as food photographers, and content creators. First and foremost, some are like, I’m a food blogger, I’m not great at the photography and the other stuff. So I kind of just say, food content creators when I’m referencing, you know, food bloggers. But the reason why diversifying revenue, why it matters is because, like, if you were to look at any company that is successful, like outside of our industry, it really comes from having multiple revenue streams. And the reason why is because it creates less risk in our business, when one might not be working, or if we’re building towards that. So oftentimes, food bloggers are building towards qualifying for ad revenue or an ad network, but oftentimes not making money while they’re doing that. And then it kind of leads to burnout. And sometimes, you know, we stop altogether, because we’re frustrated that we’re not making any income, or we’re not making the income that’s justifying us to keep going. But if you were to look at the average millionaire, they have seven or more income streams. And I want to clarify, I am not striving to be a millionaire, and I’m not teaching people to become a millionaire. But if we were to just look at commonalities between successful companies or successful people, they have multiple revenue streams. And that is, the reason why is it creates less risk within their business so that they can build one aspect of their business and still have money coming in.

Megan Porta  08:46

Yeah, that’s a huge point to make. I don’t think about that very often that people who are highly successful, probably don’t rely on one revenue stream. That’s something to keep in mind for all of us.

Candice Ward  09:00

Absolutely. And I also wanted to mention, I love this story. I talked about this all the time, because we all know, Apple as a company. But I don’t know if everybody knows the story of how they started with one product in the 70s. And at the time, Steve Jobs was actually pitching investors on the idea of having a computer in every single person’s home before the computer was ever built. So like he never had a product. He was pitching investors on an idea and on an outcome. And I say that because as we kind of go through a discussion today, I want people to think about, okay, I’m brand new, or maybe we’re thinking we don’t have any value to offer or we’ve never worked with a brand before. So how can we justify reaching out to a brand if we don’t have any experience doing it yet? It’s totally possible. And just think of the Steve Jobs story about how he pitched investors on the idea of Apple before the computer was ever completed. And then it wasn’t until like to 2000s, when Microsoft started arising as a competitor, that Apple was like, we need more products we’re not, you know, we can’t just rely on the computer anymore. So that’s when they made the iPhone and the iPad, and that those products actually is what transformed Apple into the most valuable company in the world. So I thought that was…

Megan Porta  10:21

Yeah, thank you for yeah, relaying that. And then the thing that you talked about with Apple and how Steve Jobs pitched, based on an idea, I feel like that is really scary for a lot of food bloggers, or content creators to even consider because it’s like, well, I don’t have it refined. I can’t possibly do that. So what are your thoughts on that? Absolutely.

Candice Ward  10:44

I mean, I would agree, it’s the biggest fear is landing that first client and how do you communicate that value when you feel like you don’t offer any. But the thing is, we have to reframe the way we think about it, because we do offer a value. Even if we’ve never worked with a brand before, you’re still creating content for your own blog. And for your own audience. Therefore, there’s a value to that. And there are companies that will or brands that will pay you to leverage the content that you’re using. So like, for example, let’s say that you have a brownie recipe that you put on your blog, and it did well on your blog, and or on Instagram, that is social proof, that is stat, those are stats that you can say, okay, my audience likes brownies, or maybe they like chocolate. And then let’s say you’re using that content, and you’re just repurposing it in different ways, and you’re making a chocolate, or a brownie cake, instead of just brownies, that would be the perfect opportunity to reach out to maybe a chocolate company or a brand that would make sense within that recipe, and pitch them on that idea on a collaboration are working together in some way. Because you already have social proof that that recipe is most likely going to perform. If you’re, you know, your audience already likes brownies. So that’s a really easy way if you’ve never worked with brands before to get your foot in the door and say, Hey, I this is the value I’m offering this is my audience is telling me they liked this. And they want more of it. And here’s what I’m, you know, here’s the recipe I have coming in going live in three weeks, you can easily pitch them on on that idea. 

Megan Porta  12:23

That’s such a creative way to leverage, like you said, the content that you already have made, you’ve already put all the work into it. Now you can get a little bit of more, a little bit more juice out of it, right. 

Candice Ward  12:33

Yeah, exactly. 

Megan Porta  12:35

So maybe look at your top content and just see what aligns with that and start there. Okay, do you want to talk through I know that you work with brands, and this is something that you’re talking about a lot with bloggers, and content creators, but are there other ways that we can think through just adding additional revenue to our businesses?

Candice Ward  12:53

Yes, absolutely. And I love talking about this, because I think we as creatives and as solopreneurs, we get very linear focused on one aspect of our business, because most of us either don’t have the time or capacity to do anything outside of that. But what I hope for you to get out of today is to see there are other ways and they don’t have to require hours and hours additional of additional time or work we can kind of be using working smarter, not harder, necessarily. So I mean, there’s a lot of different ways. But some of the most, I guess, easiest or obvious would be you know, freelance or UGC content. And this would be you creating content for brands that has nothing to do with your social following, or your blog traffic or anything like that. That would be one way. The other way would be obviously sponsored content, affiliate content, you can coach others, I’ve seen so many food bloggers that are now emerging as coaches, which is amazing digital products, just a easy digital product that you can create in Canva and charge 3.99,5.99,10.99 Just a low price point that would be something that could offer value to your audience, that wouldn’t take a lot of time for you to create. This is considered a passive form of income. So it’s you do the upfront work one time, and you just have it live in on your site for people to purchase. You’re not having to do anything else to make sales unless of course, you want to spend time marketing that you can photograph for restaurants or other bloggers. You can do social media management. I’ve seen a lot of my coaching clients are doing social media management, I mean, anything within the wheelhouse of what we are already doing. Like think about how you can leverage that skill or strength that you have, that you’re already doing and how you can monetize that now rather than waiting for something to happen down the road are waiting to get on an ad network. 

Megan Porta  14:51

And you might even find that you like the thing that you’re doing to supplement more than you’d like blogging right? That actually happens.

Candice Ward  15:00

That happened to me. 

Megan Porta  15:02

Yeah, same!

Candice Ward  15:03

I will say like, people think that I’ve monetized my blog, I actually haven’t I plan to, but I kind of put it to the side, I still do add recipes to my site, but it’s not consistently and I’m not, I’m doing that strategically, because I started kind of doing what you just said, and exploring other revenue streams. And I’m like, Oh, this is actually worth my time, I’m getting more bang for my buck, if you will, with doing you know, XYZ, so 65% of my revenue is actually freelance work, or, yeah, it’s really as I was gonna say, some of it sponsored, but it’s definitely freelance work. So creating recipes and photos or digital assets for brands to use, that I’ve gotten this clients from direct pitching, cold pitching. And then I would say the 40 ish percent, or 30% is digital products. And there, they don’t have to be expensive. Like I said, they can be a $10 digital download that you make that’s serving your audience in a really meaningful way. And something that they’re going to want to say yes to like a simple like a meal plan or your shopping list, or whatever it is, your niche is think of what would help your audience and some people are like, Well, how do I figure that out? Chat GPT is a really great place to start. But also think about anytime you’re doing keyword research for a specific type of recipe, start seeing the commonalities of like, is there anything kind of overarching that you could create a digital download for like, if you’re, you know, cooking meat? Like how do you temp your meat properly? Or I’m not a meat person? So maybe, maybe I should do something in the baking. Like baking. A lot of times people are like, how do you bake cakes in advance so that I don’t have to spend hours and hours making a three layered cake, the day of my party, so I could create a digital download? That is like $5, saying, This is how you make your cakes. Here are the steps. Here’s your, you know, your weekly plan for how to execute on that. So it can be really simple. 

Megan Porta  17:08

Yeah, can you put that together, please? Because three layer cakes, I love making them. And I stress out because it’s like, yeah, the night before and the day of I’m so frazzled, but they look so beautiful. So I love doing it. But 

Candice Ward  17:22

Yeah, I will give you my top tip is to just make the actual cake. You can make it months in advance. I do mine like a week in advance and I freeze it. And then I thawed it the tonight before? Yeah.

Megan Porta  17:35

Yes, that makes sense. But yeah, like that is such a simple idea or example of just a pain point that people have inside of your niche that needs to be solved. So it doesn’t have to be like an elaborate digital product, right? It can be just a printout or one PDF file or something just as long as it’s helping that pain point for people. 

Candice Ward  17:57

Yeah, and start small, because it’s easier for you to kind of test the market and test your audience and what they want to see. And if you haven’t invested too much time creating it, and it’s a really low price point for them to invest in, then it’s not really a lost opportunity. To me, it’s kind of like market research. And going back to what we talked about is you know, as business owners, we have to constantly evolve. And that’s a great way to evolve and kind of test the waters of like, what’s working and what’s not working, and how can you pivot from there.

Megan Porta  18:30

I love all the options you provided. I think that I mean, anyone could look at those and pick something out whether it’s coaching or creating a product or photographing for, you know, freelance, or restaurants or other bloggers like there’s something in there that everyone could pull out. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think is the most effective way to add an additional revenue stream to your business?

Candice Ward  18:57

Yeah, I think it depends on where you are in your business and what you’re focused on. But I will say I often see, when I’m coaching food bloggers, they come to me because they’re at that point where they’re like, Okay, I’ve either hit a plateau or either they’re monetizing their blog, but they’re not growing as much as they want, or they’re working towards monetizing their blog. And they’re kind of tired of playing that social media going viral, to get traffic to my blog or to get brands to notice you. So they’re looking for another way. And I started researching, and obviously what has worked for me is pitching but I know that’s not going to be for everybody. But then I started researching and I I saw that studies actually said that pitching or sending a direct email is 40 times more effective than just relying on social media. And I know we rely on social media to drive traffic to our website. I totally get that and I think that’s valid. But when I heard that stat I was not surprised because email marketing is not dead, it’s actually extremely effective, if done right. And pitching is part of that part of email marketing. And not only that the buying process happens three times faster when you send a direct email. So you’ve probably everyone’s heard this statistic, right with with marketing, it can take up to seven times of hearing the same message before somebody is ready to take action or buy a product or hire you. So if you think about that, if we just go on social media alone, and just think of all the noise already that’s on social media we’re competing with, it would take a brand, potentially seven times maybe even more, to see your profile or come across to you or get to know you before they’re like, let’s reach out to that person and ask to maybe collaborate with them. versus sending an email is more effective. And it is quicker, like there was you can get results quicker. So pitching really gives you kind of back back control of your income and diversifying because you’re choosing, you’re choosing who you reach out to you’re choosing who you potentially work with, and you’re going to see if you learn to pitch effectively, you’ll see the direct results back in your paycheck, you know, from the work that you’re putting into it rather than like social media is a total guessing game, in my opinion.

Sponsor 21:28

Are you tired of falling through the cracks as a seasoned food blogger? It’s just assumed that once a food blogger gets to a certain number of years or a certain level of traffic that they don’t need resources or direction any longer. We’re good, right? No, we’re not good. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Seasoned food bloggers need guidance and relevant information too. There are ways to find the guidance and support we need, such as high quality mastermind groups and retreats. But if those options don’t align with your budget or your schedule, then you’re kind of out of luck. We are relegated to sorting through all the information in Facebook groups when we don’t know how trustworthy the sources of information even are. All of this is exactly why my friend Melissa, the blogger behind Mama Gourmand and I have decided to put together a workshop style summit geared specifically toward advanced food bloggers. We are gathering no more than 50 people in Denver, Colorado in May, 2024 to give monetized food bloggers the love and support they need and deserve. Go to flavormediasummit.net to get all the information you need about speakers, dates, our vision for the event, and to fill out an application. This experience is going to be highly valuable and one of a kind. We cannot wait to see some of you there. Many of the spots have already been taken for this event. So if this is intriguing to you, fill out an application today, go to flavormediasummit.net, follow the link to tickets and application and apply today.

Megan Porta  22:58

And not to discount the budget. So influencer marketing I know is a huge and growing industry correct and probably not going to die off anytime soon?

Candice Ward  23:07

Yes, that’s correct. Yeah, it’s projected. I mean, it’s, it’s, again, studies, this was from Forbes magazine said that it’s a $21.1 billion industry. And they’re actually showing that it’s predicted in 2024, that within the top 10 marketing strategies, user generated content, sponsored content, and video marketing are in the top 10. Like, most, I guess, top trends for marketing. So those are all the all three of those are what we can do as a food blogger and supporting brands with their marketing initiatives is helping them create more of that type of content. I mean, it’s it’s not going anywhere, therefore brands are going to keep paying for it. So we can’t have that mindset of they don’t have budget, or they’re not hiring influencers anymore, they still very much are hiring influencers. 

Megan Porta  24:01

Yeah, definitely see that around our space. Do you mind walking us through? I know you have a formula? Can you walk us through that?

Candice Ward  24:10

Yes, I’ll try to keep it simple, because it’s definitely a formula that there are some numbers involved. So I’ll just give you like a high level, it is easier to see the numbers actually written out or the formula written out. But okay, so before I get into the numbers, I just want to say that there are a few different methodologies when it comes to pitching brands. And I’ll give you like a high level of method one and method method, one that I think most of us kind of fall into is where you know, we find the brand’s email, we send out the pitch email, we might follow up once, maybe twice, and then we don’t hear back so we stop and we get frustrated because we’ve spent so many hours pitching so many brands, and we’re getting nothing in return. We’re not seeing the paycheck. We’re not seeing the relationship aspect of it. And so I have done that form of pitching in my corporate days. And it definitely can work meaning like you’re just emailing as many people as you can. But if you work at a large corporation, because you have the resources to actually follow through and see, like, who’s opening your emails, you know, how many times have I followed up with this person, but as solopreneurs, we don’t have the time or the resources, therefore, it doesn’t, it doesn’t work, the formula and the methodology that I teach, and that’s, that works for us as solopreneurs. I call it the SPA method. But it’s just an acronym that I’ve created for called the Strategic Pitching Approach. And that actually is you pitch fewer brands in, you spend less time pitching, but you do it with a very targeted pitch, message and pitch formula, which I can give you like my outline for a pitch template. But a few things that go into or factor into seeing success with, I guess, this methodology is you’re writing custom pitch emails to each brand. So you’re not just copying and pasting the same message, which does require researching the brand and finding a way to make a connection with them within the first sentence, like your opening sentence, that really makes a huge difference. A lot of us open our pitch emails with who we are and what we do. And I teach people to actually have that be paragraph two, which sounds really unconventional. But so that would be the first thing. And then the other factor that goes into success with this method is, again, pitching fewer brands with a targeted pitch email, but following up, so making sure that you follow up, sometimes four to five times, because it can take that many times for them to respond. And 80% of people actually stop after email, two. So if you actually want to stand out, keep emailing them because you will by far see more success than just stopping at the second email. 

Megan Porta  27:02

Wow, that’s huge. 80% stop after. So they send to and then they’re like, nevermind, this is too much work. And then they stop.

Candice Ward  27:09

Exactly. And then people stop pitching because they say they say it doesn’t work or they didn’t, you know, get the right contact or, you know, they’re not getting a response or they’re getting ghosted, and that’s most often that’s it’s one of the two things, either they’re just sending a generic pitch email, and the actual email needs to be modified and refined, or they’re not following up or again, their pitch doesn’t have any value to it, meaning they’re not telling the brand, why they should be reading the email, they’re just telling them what they do. So the example that I give, that a lot of us I think do is like we email them, Hi, I’m Candice, I’m a food blogger of eat more cake, or I’m a food photographer, and I, you know, I create these types of recipes, I want to teach people that we need to change the script, in order to gain the attention of the person that we’re reaching out to, and we need to speak their language. But we also need to explain why they want to listen to us and to our pitch email. So a really easy way to reframe that is to say something to the effect of, it’s a little harder for me to think of it like on the spot, but something like, you know, my name is Candice, I create custom digital marketing assets or custom food content for brands or high performing food content, however you want to say it that helps brands increase visibility, reach and sales, because at the end of the day, that’s what you’re doing. And if they can see that that’s your goal with working with them, they’re more likely to continue reading your pitch email.

Megan Porta  28:47

Oh, that’s gold. Yeah. Because that’s, I mean, if you think about it, that’s probably what every single brand is going after one or all of those three things. 

Candice Ward  28:49

Exactly. Yeah. And then your job in the pitch email is to show them how right like, here are three ideas that I have, or here’s one content idea I have, you know, around maybe an upcoming season or holiday or again, leveraging the content that you already have created. And to say, this is performing well, I know this will perform well for your audience to or I know that this will perform well again, for my audience incorporating your product. So just showing that you kind of have stats or proof in the pudding, if you will, is going to go so far. And I actually tell people to take screenshots of that and put it in the body of their pitch email, like no more attaching your media kit, no more putting in links because they are not clicking and they’re not opening it. And unless they ask for it, it’s different if they respond, and they’re like, Oh, great. Yeah, we might be interested. Can you send over your media kit? Yes. Then you send it but don’t just send your media kit before they ask. It’s it also I think can increase your chances of your email go going into spam. If you just have an attachment, you’ve never emailed that person before it look like spam.

Megan Porta  30:05

Yeah. Do you alter your? So let’s say you send four emails to a brand, do you alter every single one? Or do you just forward it and then write something at the top like a lot of people do. 

Candice Ward  30:16

I custom write every single one. And this is why I only pitch about five to 10 brands per month, because it allows me to really spend the time that is required to research them and to make that connection with them. And I think that’s the most important part of a pitch email is really opening your email with some sort of connection, whether that’s something that you notice the brand, maybe they launched a new product, or maybe they’ve updated a flavor of their existing product, or maybe they have a reel that is a recipe reel, and you’re like, that looks really good. I actually want to try making that or maybe you did make it. Those are just really easy ways to make a connection with a brand in your first initial one to two sentences, that goes beyond just saying, I’m a food blogger, and I use your product regularly. And that’s why I want to work together. Because the truth is, there are more content creators out there. Now there’s more food bloggers, there’s more photographers, UGC creators, and we’re all competing in that space. And I think there’s, of course, enough opportunity and room for us all. But we have to find nuances and ways to stand out and not just say the same thing that everybody is saying. And I don’t think it’s bad to say that sometimes. But I think we need to find different ways to make connections with brands right off the bat. Because at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to entice them to keep reading your email versus being like, oh, okay, just another person wanting to work with us. 

Megan Porta  31:46

Yeah, that makes sense. I love your strategy of just focusing on fewer brands, but targeting them more, and just giving them more attention and more kind of love, right? Like you’re investing more energy into each one. 

Candice Ward  32:00

Yeah, and the reason why I teach this is because I had the same exact pain points as everybody else. When I first started, I was pitching brands. And I’m like, I mean, even though I come from a background in sales, I don’t want to be pitching brands like no more than anybody else. But I recognized that that was a requirement to make the income that I wanted to make, especially when I was not making any income from my blog. And it was taking me 10 plus hours to do one blog post. I’m like, I can’t sustain this. I also had like a driving force. And just in my personal life, like my husband and I were buying a house in a neighborhood like our dream neighborhood. And our mortgage was nearly doubling. And my husband was like, You need to make income, like we cannot buy this house unless you bring in the time I was making like 500 here and there working with a brand. I’m like, well, that’s scary. So that’s when I started, like creating this methodology and actually like refining it until it worked, because I didn’t have a choice. And so when I tell people that it works, it’s because it truly, I believe in it that much I’ve seen results with, like, 350 students in my course have seen the exact same outcome. And I’m like, okay, like, it’s actually it’s working, because it’s teaching you to convert more of the pitches that you’re sending. So it’s making that time that you send pitching, worth it rather than, you know, just wasting hours doing something that’s not fruitful.

Megan Porta  33:30

Right, the quality is really important and versus just pure quantity. Exactly. Yeah, we all get those emails that are like this was not quality content not written in a quality mindset. Yeah, for sure. I probably mentioned this on our last call, but I get emails all the time that are like, Dear Eat like for Eat BlogTalk. And like, really, you couldn’t even take the time to figure out what my name was. So no.

Candice Ward  33:56

What I mean. But even like, beyond that, sometimes there’ll be like, we’ve researched your Instagram and you look like such a fit and it’s for like CBD oil. What made you think I would not know?

Megan Porta  34:08

I had those two. I’m like, no, no, no, or like fashion and beauty care. And like, No, I’ve never talked about any of that. And I don’t care. Yeah, so quality is important. Is there anything else about your method that you want to mention? I want to ask you about your program, because I think this could align with a lot of food bloggers, for sure. But want to make sure we covered everything about your method first. 

Candice Ward  34:31

Yeah, I think the last thing without overcomplicating it is really like that. I do have like an actual formula to figure out the number of brands that you need to pitch each month. So it really just starts out by figuring out what your income is like what your monthly income is that you’re trying to make, and that’s going to look very different for everybody else. And then dividing that income. So like if it was $1,000 and then let’s say you charge on average $500 to work with a brand, then you would need to find two brand deals a month. And then I take that and I’m like, Okay, well, if I only need two, then what does that mean, in terms of the number of people I need to pitch to you, that doesn’t mean you pitch to that means you probably need a pitch more, because you’re not going to convert all of them. So if you need two jobs, then you want to divide it by on average, I would say 30% is like the average person’s conversion, meaning, you know, if you were to pitch, a certain number of brands, only 30% of those will either respond or ended up turning into anything. So you really want to like 3x, the number of jobs that you’re reaching out to so that would be like for two jobs, you want to reach out to about six brands, then if I’m doing the math correct, yeah. And so it really when you when you simplify it in that way, and you get super hyper focused on the exact number you need to reach out to, I teach people that it’s like, okay, it’s doable, you can actually pitch six brands, or maybe 10, or 15, and see the numbers that you need to see, instead of being like, I’m just gonna go out and pitch as many brands as I can, and then hope that something turns into a brand deal. That is like the number one key difference with this method is that you get hyper focussed on like, the exact number of brands you need to pitch to, so that no time of yours is lost or wasted.

Megan Porta  36:29

That is music to my ears. And probably everyone listening no wasted time, right? Oh, yeah. I love this great formula. So I wrote that all down. It’s gold. Yeah. So tell us about your program. So the competent pitch program, if somebody were to join that, what would they get? 

Candice Ward  36:48

Yes. So it is a comprehensive marketing plan. Essentially, think of it as like your sales funnel or your sales process. And I don’t like using the word sales, because most people shut down or like, oh, I don’t want to do sales. But like, the reality is, if you’re a business owner, you’re in sales. If you’re an influencer, you’re in sales. So this is really my way of teaching you guys how to simplify that process, how to pitch fewer brands, what goes into that is really like, again, starting with the business foundation. So I have four modules. The first module is all about business planning. So laying down the foundation, goal setting, understanding the value that you offer brands, because how can you then pitch them if you don’t fully understand the value that you’re offering? So give all these little ideas that kind of we talked through today? And then you know, figuring out what your pricing looks like, how do you price for profit? Instead of just throwing out a random number? How do you actually calculate that? And then it goes through how to, like the pitching formula. I have pitch templates, there’s like 20 different pitch templates. How do you turn a gifted opportunity into a paid opportunity give you the exact verbiage like these are like scripts that I’ve literally used to land brand opportunities, or negotiate brand opportunities. And then I give you my signature method is I call it my brand’s method. It’s again, an acronym that I’ve created to help us remember the sales process. So the acronym is really my signature, six step sales process, which is really the game changer of how, like, it tells you what to do in each step. So you’re like, how do I lead the brand to a yes, because there’s so much more to landing a brand opportunity than just sending a pitch email and being like, Oh, great, I nailed my pitch email. You know, there’s negotiations, there’s back and forth on figuring out how to best work together and align and collaborate. And so my brand’s method really teaches you like the nitty gritty on okay, if a brand says this, what’s my next step? How do I navigate that? How do I lead them to the next step in the funnel? And it takes the guesswork out of everything, instead of being like, I don’t know what to respond to the brand. You’re like, I know exactly what to respond to the brand in this scenario. And then the last module is all about negotiating. How do you actually negotiate for the rate that you want to get paid, and that you deserve. And then what happens after the brand says, Yes, and you guys close the deal? There’s a contract in the course, that was lawyer reviewed. And there’s also like the post sales process, like how do you get paid? How do you collect payment, who sends the invoice? So it’s really the full lifecycle of working with a brand in a really, really simplified way.

Megan Porta  39:28

Hmm, that sounds so comprehensive and awesome. How do people get involved in that if they want to?

Candice Ward  39:34

so I typically open the doors once a year, but that will be changing I do have like you can access right now my my doors are open through Friday, but I know this probably won’t go live in time, but I’m happy to give you links to The Confident Pitch Program so that people can review and see if it’s best for them. And I’m going to be opening up The Confident Pitch Program to be accessible, really anytime year round because everyone’s journey is so different. And I have found that just having, I used to open the doors once a year, because I have a VIP aspect to it, where we do group coaching. So it’s really I do kind of group cohorts of group coaching. And so that’s still only once a year, but I will have the course available for anybody that doesn’t necessarily need the group coaching, they just want access to the course they can have access to that year round. So I’ll definitely give you details for being able to have access to that.

Megan Porta  40:27

Awesome, this was so helpful just thinking through not just pitching brands, but also some other ways that we can bring a little bit of additional revenue into our businesses, if it’s at the top of our minds, which I believe a lot of food bloggers do have this at the top of their minds in 2024. So thank you so much, Candice, for all of this.

Candice Ward  40:45

Thank you for having me.

Megan Porta  40:46

Yeah. Do you have another quote or words of inspiration to share with us? 

Candice Ward  40:50

Yeah, it’s not so much a quote. But something that I that I live by, in my business and in my life is really about taking risks, and just doing things scared, even though you don’t necessarily know the outcome. I feel like any time that I’ve taken risk in my career, my life, I’ve done something that’s scared every part of me has always turned into the most rewarding, most, sometimes most lucrative, beautiful opportunity that you didn’t even know was there. And risk really, while I should say fear, which comes before taking the risk. Fear is just really our coping mechanism to not do that thing, because it appears that it could be too risky. And so for me, I’ve always kind of like leaned into fear. And I know as like entrepreneurs and food bloggers and creatives that oftentimes we kind of get stuck. And we get held back by that. And I just want to be words of encouragement for anyone that’s feeling like they can’t do it, because they don’t have it all figured out is to just take one step forward. And if something’s like calling you even though it sounds like a big risk, there’s a reason and you should listen to it.

Megan Porta  42:10

I have one of those things in my head. It’s been bouncing around for a while. So I just wrote it down to do it. So thank you, Candice, for that little nudge today. If there are some things I’m like, Okay, I know this is scary, but I can do it. But then there are other things that are just so scary. Do you know what I mean? They’re like, I’m going to shelve that. And then you keep shelving it. And then you’re like, wait a second, why do I keep doing that? Because eventually, you’ve got to get revisited. 

Candice Ward  42:38

Yes, absolutely. Oh, I can’t wait to talk to you about this. That’s funny. Oh, and telling somebody that’s telling somebody saying it out loud will hold you accountable. When I started my business. I was like, people are gonna think I’m crazy leaving a sales career to make wedding cakes, like, Who is this person, but I started telling people, and then I started believing it more and I sort of believing in myself because I’m like, I told everybody that I’m doing this, so I better do it. 

Megan Porta  43:06

Yes, that is a good. Yep. That’s a huge piece of it, too. You don’t want to be like, Oh, I told you that a year ago and I haven’t followed through. Yeah, that’s worse than the fear itself. Right. Exactly. Thank you so much. For this we’ll put together a show notes page for you Candice for this episode. If you want to look go to eatblogtalk.com/eatmorecaketwo. Tell everyone where they can find you again.

Candice Ward  43:31

Yeah, you can find me my blogging page is Eat More Cake by Candice. And if you want to learn all things, business and brands and pitching, you can find me @theconfidentpitch on Instagram.

Megan Porta  43:46

Awesome. Thank you again for being here. And thanks so much for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Sponsor  43:53

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you posted it to your social media feed and stories. I will see you next time.

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