You're listening to cubicle to CEO episode 188. Most entrepreneurs look at content as a means to an end or unnecessary marketing strategy to drive sales to the actual service or product their business provides. But what if you also monetize the content itself? Tiffany Yu made $100,000 last year with her side hustle as a content creator, a completely separate income stream from her primary role as a CEO and founder of diverse ability and award winning entirely disabled run and led social enterprise to elevate disability pride. Her case study today exemplifies how entrepreneurs can double as creators to outside of their role as CEO and accomplished three times TEDx speaker with more than 180,000 followers now across platforms, Tiffany may surprise you with how she got her first brand deal for $5,000 with only 5000 followers on Instagram, and why this is realistic for a business owner of any size audience to achieve. Brand deals, however, aren't the only way to monetize as a content creator, which Tiffany reveals at her break down today are the various income sources that contributed to her $100,000 side hustle.
Welcome to cubicle to CEO the podcast. I'm your host Ellen Yin. I quit my job without a backup plan and bootstrapped my first $300 freelance project into $2 million in revenue by age 28. On this show, you'll hear weekly case study interviews with leading entrepreneurs and CEOs who share one specific strategy that successfully grew their business revenue. Skip the expensive and time consuming learning curve of testing everything yourself by borrowing what actually works from the best and brightest mentors. You'll also get a front row seat to my founders journey through transparent income reports and behind the business solo episodes. Subscribe now so we can grow together every Monday.
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All right, friends, we have Tiffany Yu here with us today founder of Diversability. And her case study is a kickoff to a two part back to back episodes series where we are going to talk about the business model of being a creator being an influencer. And what's really awesome about today's case study is Tiffany's full time business is not being a content creator or influencer per se. But she's still been able to make more than six figures through doing content, essentially as a side hustle. So we'll get into the details in just a moment. But first, Tiffany, I'd love to ask you what is your cubicle to CEO story?
Hmm, the short version is that I got fired. But the longer version is that I graduated in 2010, which was a couple years after the oh eight recession. But even with all of that the most attractive jobs to get at the time were either in investment banking, or consulting. And my funny story, or my it's funny to me is that my freshman year I was taking an accounting 101 class, my freshman year of college, and my balance sheet balance and I was like so excited. And then I just knew I wanted to like stay in finance. So I got a job at Goldman. I was there for a few years investment banking, healthcare, and or healthcare, investment banking. And then my third year there I decided to participate in a program they had called mobility. And it just meant that they wanted to keep you out the bank. But if you wanted to try out a different part of the bank, you could so I actually made a non traditional move and I moved to campus recruiting. Hmm. And so here I was a banker turned recruiter, that was the first transition.
And then at the end of my time as a recruiter I loved you know, getting to focus on the pipeline of students that we could introduce to careers in financial services. There was so much that I learned in the two years I'm an ex banker that you'll meet who actually appreciated my time in investment banking, I don't have very many negative things to say. But after that, I decided I wanted to pursue a childhood dream of broadcast journalism. I had always admired Ellen DeGeneres and Katie Couric growing up, and I kind of just wanted to know what that life was like. So I ended up getting a job as a production assistant working from the bottom, it was a contractor attempt to perm role at Bloomberg Television. So took the financial knowledge that I knew, transitioned and pivoted that over to the media world.
And after a few years there, so many pivots in the in the in the cubicle, cubicle side of things. But after about a year there, I ended up getting poached to come back into finance. But this time within a music startup that was co founded by P. Diddy, which was pretty cool. I got to sit in on board meetings, he was the chairman of the board, I manage all of our kind of like investor relations are reported to the CFO. On paper, it was everything that like the lean in version of Tiffany wanted my own office director level title reporting sitting in on board meetings. And then after a little bit of a winding road, got a role at a startup, I was there for six months, and then got fired, and told myself that I would try out this diverse mobility thing, which had started out as a university club was a side hustle, kind of like a meetup group for a while. But try that out. My I got fired date was actually March 3 2017. So now we are approaching six plus years.
Wow. Well, happy fire aversary?
Well, I actually do think we should make it a thing because I think there's so much shame surrounding the experience of getting laid off or getting fired. And for a period of time, I didn't tell anyone because I felt shame. And then I'm like, How am I supposed to find my next opportunity or my next job, if I'm not letting people know that I'm looking and that I'm available?
You know, as we're having this conversation in real time, I just had a light bulb go off in my head. So I have to credit you if this ever comes to fruition, but I feel like there should be some sort of virtual summit or virtual event where we can bring on a group of panelists all who have been laid off or fired at some point and turn that into their next big pivot or their next big thing that really was kind of meant to be their life's work.
It's funny when you started off your story with Well, the short of it is that I got fired. I was laughing if you were if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll you'll see my face do that. But it was because this morning, Tiffany I actually just interviewed another podcast guest who literally almost verbatim answer that the same way. She was like, well, in short, I got fired. And so clearly, you are not the only one. That's a really interesting story. And it's interesting, especially to me, because I also wanted to be in broadcast journalism as a childhood dream. Someday still, I would love to host a daytime television talk show, I think that would be my ultimate dream. But hearing all of these paths that you had to take before you really landed in your role of taking what started out, like you said, as a club into a full on organization. And all the advocacy work that you do now for anti ableism is just very inspiring.
So we'll get again into a little bit more of your advocacy work at the end of this conversation. But for today's case study, so you run diverse ability, but you also have this side hustle as a content creator. And I know that term can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people in your purview. How do you think of your content creation side business? Like how would you define that?
Yeah, I actually see it as an extension of my advocacy. So one part of this story that I haven't really shared is that those first couple of years after getting fired and exploring this full time, diverse ability slash disability advocacy work was I was a very scrappy entrepreneur. I was Airbnb being out my bedroom when I was traveling, you know, shout out to the gig economy. I was being an extra in commercials, I was selling jewelry, like I was doing so many different things. Because a lot of advocacy work pay $0. And so when so many of us found our way online in 2020. I was like, if everyone's going on to social media, I'm gonna go on social media too.
But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that in 2019, that's when I got my first significant brand deal. It was for $5,000. I had maybe like 5000 Instagram followers at the time, but my audience is so niche. The hope is that it doesn't become that niche, right being a disabled Asian woman. Hopefully there are more of us creating content. But yeah, I see it as an extension of my advocacy, but also a place where I can go to expand my creative outlets and how Have fun. So I have noticed that over the last couple of years I've kind of de niched or unleashed I don't know what the version, you know, there's kind of like a de influencing trend right now. Yeah. And in the beginning, it was all here's disability advocacy content or like, here's how I navigate life as someone who has a paralyzed arm, that's one of the disabilities that I have are, here's what it's like to live with PTSD. And, and now my content is like, Hey, here's a cool event that I went to, and I just want to share it because this is my video diary in a way. So I think that making sure that I'm pairing that title content creator with having fun, and being able to document parts of my life and share that with other people has been important for my mental health as a creator and to have some balance.
Absolutely. And I want to circle back to that very first deal that you ever landed or first significant deal, as you said in 2019, on Instagram. But before I do that, I typically wouldn't ask a question that you can Google because the whole point of our show is to ask successful entrepreneurs, the questions you can't google, but I feel like for the sake of our listeners, it would be helpful to have a little bit of context. So maybe the 32nd version of you know, you kind of already teased it a little bit you live with disabilities. But tell us your story that really launched this whole mission of yours.
Yeah, so daughter of a Taiwanese immigrant and a refugee from the Vietnam War. That will make sense soon. And at the age of nine, I was involved in a car accident, my dad was driving he unfortunately passed away, I acquired a slew of injuries, including breaking a couple bones on one of my legs, that would leave me in a wheelchair for four months, broken bones do heal, or hopefully the majority of them heal. And I also acquired a permanent nerve injury on my right arm known as a brachial plexus injury, the easiest way to understand is that my arm is paralyzed. And in the years that followed, as the daughter of Asian immigrants, it was instilled in me not to share anything that might be seen as shameful, that could even include the firing.
And so the car accident was seen as shameful. The fact that my dad passed away the fact that I now had a visible apparent disability. And sometimes people will come and be like, well, what's the whole deal? Why are they shameful? And in my cultural upbringing, anything like that made it seem like our family had bad luck. And it would make other families not want to associate with us for fear that we would rub our bad luck off onto people, rather than this was some isolated random series of events. So for 12 years, I didn't tell anyone about the car accident, which is actually what I actually think exacerbated my PTSD. But I told everyone My dad was away on a trip, people assumed my injury was from birth, people just made a lot of assumptions. And it made me realize that by not owning my own story, I was not only keeping track of a lot of lies, but I was also letting a lot of other people define what my story was.
So that turning point in 2009, creating this disability club at Georgetown was really, I want to share my story in the most truthful way in my version of this truth. And I wonder if other people like me are looking for a platform or a way to know that their stories matter, too. And maybe it will provide possibility, or empowerment or motivation for other people that the greatest gift is just by being yourself. And that's actually something that I've translated to my content to. That wasn't 30 seconds, I apologize. But I tried to make it as low as possible.
No, it that. I mean, it was extremely succinct. It is hard to take such a powerful big story and put it into so few words. And I'm sitting, you're so inspired. And I mean, I would love to spend an hour plus talking to you just about that side of the story. Unfortunately, of course, we don't have that space today. But for those of you listening, if this is your first introduction into Tiffany's world and her work at diverse ability, please do not leave this episode without taking the time to actually Google Diversability, Google Tiffany Yu and learn more about the story that you know, she just previewed because it is so powerful.
And I did not experience something physically traumatic, like losing a parent at such a young age, Tiffany, but I can absolutely relate from the cultural standpoint of wanting to facade isn't the right word that I'm looking for. But I understand what you mean, you know, in Asian culture and Chinese culture and Taiwanese culture, it is very important that your place in society is very much viewed by how others perceive your family. And there's so much intergenerational I think, shame or secrecy that can be passed on because you want to make sure that everything looks golden on the outside right. And I think that you breaking the barriers of that trauma and allowing others to feel seen by your story is incredibly brave and just something I truly admire. So it Thank you for giving us extra context.
Thank you. And if your listeners want to google it, I think it's called Saving Face. Have you heard about that?
No, I haven't.
Okay, another another podcast. But in Mandarin, there's a phrase called Diūliǎn, which means to lose face. But I actually didn't learn Mandarin growing up. So I don't know what the saving face version of it is. But by it was pretty much just like you don't want to lose face, which means you did something embarrassing. You did something shameful that makes you lose representation, or sorry, it makes you lose your reputation. And all everything you want to do is to save your face and to save your family's face.
Yes. Okay. When you said, Are you familiar with save face? I thought you meant like as it as an organization or some sort of movie. But no, now that you say, Diūliǎn, I completely understand what you're saying. Because my mom used to say stuff like that to me all the time. Like, it is absolutely about, like you said, just making sure again, that your reputation is intact and whole for strangers or for the public. So anyways, yes, definitely Google Tiffany's story, when you have the time.
And let's go back real quick Tiffany to the case study. So your first Instagram deal was when you had 5000 followers? Tell us about how that deal came about? Who was it with? Was this an inbound request? Was this something you pitched. And I think that's really encouraging to for a lot of people to hear that you didn't have this massive following when you were able to land this $5,000 deal. So I would love the details around this.
Yeah, I don't know if I can name names, but I will describe the initiative. So it was actually a instagram and twitter deal. It was an inbound. And I will say that what has been kind of unique to me is that the majority of the deals that I've done, have been inbounds. And I feel really grateful that I had so many cubical experiences because it made my network very broad and very wide. Right. I've got my broadcast journalism friends, who now are at other companies, I've got my finance friends who now are also at other companies. And my hope is that they think of me if they realize they have budget for something down the line.
But this was an inbound. And it was a campaign that was looking for people to sign a pledge, making a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. And so what I actually really liked was I feel like it was like ahead of its time. I mean, 2019 No. And so honestly, I didn't know what to charge, I had about 10,000 Total followers at the time. And again, all platforms just to clarify across the two platforms that they were thinking about. So 5000 on Instagram and 5000 on Twitter. And I think they were looking for one static post. I know now you have to go into like all the all the things one static post, one set of stories and two tweets. And when they originally came to me, they said something along the lines of like, oh, we have $3,500 to spend for this.
And keep in mind when I graduated from college, I was making six figures, like I had a very different view of money. But growing up the daughter of Asian immigrants. I think I also grew up in like a scarcity mindset about money. But I said, how much would this be worth for me to take time away from the advocacy work that I'm doing to go take a photo and write a caption and draft up some tweets. So they had already given me a number which was 35. And I went back and I said I can do this for 5000. And they said okay, and then what was interesting was after the campaign went live, I actually went and I looked at the other creators I don't call myself an influencer. But some people do. I went and looked at the other people that they had as part of the campaign. And I actually wondered if I had undersold myself, I didn't know anything about pricing.
But now looking back I realized that was a pretty good deal. But also again, my audience is very niche right and at the time and probably still, a lot of people aren't thinking about disability through a Diversity Equity and Inclusion lens and a lot of these brands especially for this specific campaign was probably thinking how do we make sure we are encompassing all the different aspects of diversity in who we're selecting to amplify this campaign?
Absolutely the context that you provided by the way extremely helpful. I am so in awe that you had the, not even audacity, the foresight to on your very first deal not just take exactly what was offered to you. I think that is so rare in not only the Creator industry, really I mean, if you think about anyone, your first client, your first brand deal, even hack your first salary, your first job offer right it's so easy, especially as women for us to just take what is given and say Oh, thank you so much like we don't want to rock the boat by coming across.
Again, you mentioned the term saving face, kind of that same lens. I think a lot of us women, we sometimes feel this innate need to people, please by not coming across as selfish or greedy, or whatever it is by asking more than what we were given. And so I just want to applaud you for that. Because that's, that's rare. And that's really cool to see. And I'm glad that they said yes. And it's funny looking back, like you said that you may have probably even had the ability to ask for more. I am curious these days, when you're looking at pricing deliverables, how do you look at pricing those deliverables now that you have more experience in your back pocket with working with brands?
Yeah. So the full disclosure I will give here is that starting in, I want to say the fall of 2021, I started working with an influencer manager. Okay, so they are the ones who help with my deals. But again, I kind of think back to if that was the threshold. So pricing is so hard, because no matter who you talk to, they won't be transparent. And they'll say, Well, it depends number of followers. And so there's actually a really great platform called Clara for creators.
I love that.
Yeah, it's like, Have you heard of it? Okay, great. So there are now a couple out there, but Clara is the one that I use. And I'll share an example. So there was a pretty well known brand, a nother social media platform. And they were looking to do a deal. And they offered $1,400 1400. And that's well below anything I had done. But I went on to Clara and I looked people who had larger followings than me. We're all doing deals at that rate. And I said, maybe they probably only budgeted this amount. And because I want to add this to my portfolio, I'm willing to do it for that.
So I think it depends, I always go in starting with what budget are you working with. And I will say one piece of advice that I got early on, that was helpful for me, because there are so many aspects of the deal that I don't think I have the knowledge around. This is why I appreciate having a rep because like exclusivity, like whitelisting, like being able to use your content in their ads like all of that you can put a price on.
So I will share that one piece of advice that I got was to itemize all of your digital assets and put a price on them. Like literally every digital assets. So how much is a set of three Instagram Stories, is one static in feed post, is a link in bio, is an Instagram reel, is a pinned post is a Instagram real on feed, you know, so, I mean, I was just taking Instagram as as an example, there are so many digital parts, having a link in the story, you know, like I just named off like so many different things that you couldn't put a price on. And when I itemized it all out, then I put prices with each of them so that I knew ballpark. And I didn't plan on really sharing that rate card with anyone. But just so I knew for my own internal barometer that if someone is asking to do an Instagram stories with a post, here's how much total it would be together. Here's how much I'd be willing to package it for.
We follow a very similar model. And I'm so glad you shared that that level of itemization is not so that you can like you said share with a brand like here's my ala carte spread of every possible thing I could offer you, you take your pick, but rather giving you confidence to kind of at a glance gauge does this budget range feel aligned with what I think my work or this distribution or access to my audience is worth right? In the link in bio? I'm so glad you said that one because that one I bet especially for new creators is not something they even thought could be like an added asset or deliverable just like putting someone's link in your bio is an additional cost because it is an additional place for visibility and for more importantly for action for click through rates, right. And so each of those things, like you mentioned, does have does it have a value attached?
You mentioned that your first Instagram deal was when you had 5000 followers. What's interesting to me is your first tiktok deal was in 2020 when you had 45,000 followers, but it was for $2,000 instead of $5000. Even though if I do the quick math, what is that? Like you had nine times the following on tiktok at the time. Do you see that as a typical trend between Tiktok and Instagram? Do you find that brands are more willing to pay for assets on Instagram versus Tik Tok? And if so, why do you think that is?
Yeah, so the short answer is yes. My Instagram I liked that you brought in the that 2020 deal because I was like man after 2019 I really you know how to discount. So you know Tik Tok was an interesting case study for me because I grew from 700 followers in July of 2020. I think That's when I started tracking it to 45,000 in a month. And I actually and that was attributed to one viral posts, which then made all of the other post viral. And at the time, and probably still, Tik Tok is so fun to me, I'm not really going there.
You know, sometimes I get a little bit nervous because I do a lot of corporate engagements as well. And I'm like, I wonder if one of my corporate partners like saw my tick tock what they would think. But then I'm like, I actually advocate for bringing your full authentic self, but not just to one place. So I think it's sprinkled across a lot of different places. And I'm like, that's where that side of my authentic self shows up. So I think on tiktok, you know, I think what was interesting was when I got that deal, or when I got the invitation, I had 45,000 followers, and I reached out to a couple other Tik Tok friends, and they all told me, they were like, yeah, 200 to $500 is good. And I was like, but I have so many followers. And so $2000 actually felt good to me.
And I even think this is a longer version, I think on Instagram. It's a stickier audience. So before the introduction of reels, and actually I'm noticing that reels now are going more to my followers, rather than just being sent to the Explore page first, while tiktok will experiment with sending your content to the for you page, see how it performs there, and actually a good performing post on tiktok, we'll have the majority of engagement happened from the for you side. Right, I think it's a lot easier. I wanted to knock on wood, it's a it's a little bit easier, or at least it feels like to me to get a follower on tiktok than it is to get a follower on Instagram.
So even now, after having invested you know, what is it four years since that first brand deal on Instagram? I now have 29,000 followers. That's, you know, it would be amazing. Actually, I did have one friend who grew from 50,000. When I first met her now she has over 400,000 Maybe she's doing something more right than I am. Versus on TikTok. Right now I have about 118,000 followers. So it's still It seems big. But I feel like I have more engagement and actually better views on Instagram. And sometimes I'll post the same exact content on Tik Tok and on Instagram, and it'll do much better on Instagram. And I actually think that's because I did a much better job of curating my audience on Instagram, to know that disability advocacy content, like if you follow my page, it's going to be disability advocacy content, I talk about anti Asian hate. I just talk about like my life as an advocate through my lens, versus I think on tiktok. They're still because I have de niched myself they're still trying to figure out like who should get my content.
Ya know, you brought up so many great points tik tok is amazing for discoverability. I am not active on tik tok enough to really give my opinion on the level of relationship built with your followers compared to other platforms. But it does seem from both what you said and what many of my friends who are active on both platforms tend to agree with is that they have closer deeper relationships with their Instagram followers versus Tik Tok followers, but they use Tik Tok as a discoverability channel. And so obviously, there's no one's Oh, yes, please..
I was gonna say I will also share that I got a piece of advice from another creator who I think has like 25 million followers across platforms. So a little a little larger than mine. And he and he actually said, he said, Tiffany, if you want to go viral create on tik tok, if you want to create a career as a content creator create on YouTube. And I'm not I'm not super active on YouTube, but becoming more active on there. But I am realizing that Tiktok helped me explode my platform and my advocacy, and also made me believe that I was a creator. But I still think that the majority of where brands or you know, other content programs are seeing value is on some of these other platforms, like LinkedIn is actually my quickest growing platform right now. And I'm still getting the majority of my deals through Instagram. But maybe wanting a cross post to tik tok
Yeah. And I I'm so glad you brought up LinkedIn too, because I have in my notes to ask you about that. Actually, when we kind of break down your different revenue streams in your side hustle content creation business. I just realized as I'm speaking with you that earlier when you mentioned, resource, Clara for creators, I meant to pull that out for our listeners in case because I said I knew what it was, but I realized not all of our listeners do so just in case you caught that moment earlier. Tiffany did mention Clara for creators, I think it's been described like a glass door for Content Creator. So, you know, if you go on Glassdoor you're able to see reviews from employees, at companies on the work, culture, leadership, etc, Clara's like that, but it's creators reviewing their relationships or their experiences working with brands, how much brands typically pay how their communication style was, etc. So it's a really great, I believe, free resource that you can look into. So just Google Clara for creators.
There's also a new one that's emerged on the scene that's gotten a lot of media. This is a clean podcast, so I won't, I won't say the actual expletive, but it's fu pay me with the actual, you know, word. And that one is is pretty awesome, too. It's all crowd sourced data. And so again, if you're new to this world, and you're just kind of curious, what do people on different platforms that different audience sizes, for different deliverables actually charge, you can look at those two sources for some of that data. So just wanted to quickly bring that point up.
But let's talk real quick about your actual split. So the numbers for those of you listening, and again, for reference in a single year, Tiffany made over $100,000, as a content creator as a side hustle. And this is not including any of the revenue or work that she does with Diversability, her main company, but this is what the split looked like it was 60% brand partnerships. So $60,935 came in from brand partnerships. 35% of the revenue came in from creator programs that includes programs such as LinkedIn creator program, the reels, bonuses, payouts, and the Tiktok. Crater fund. So that totaled $38,027. By the way, I just have to interject and say when you send over this info, Tiffany, I was like, Oh, this is a person after my own heart. On some of these you actually gave to this sent like the Penny and I was like, no one ever does that. I mean, I do that on my income reports. But like no one I've ever interviewed has done that to that level.
Let's say I'm and yeah, it's it's in a spreadsheet. This is this is where my finance, my finance degree has come in.
I am so appreciative. And I know our listeners are to that level of transparency is rare, so I appreciate you anyways. And then the final split is 5% from UGC content, which if that term is unfamiliar to you, we can dive into it a little bit more. But it stands for user generated content. And that amounted to $6,981. So I figured Tiffany, you and I could go through each of these one by one and kind of break them down. We've obviously already started talking about brand partnerships. So I'm actually going to skip over to creator funds and maybe circle back to brand partnerships at the end to recap, but for creator funds, I have actually never heard of LinkedIn creator program. Can you tell us a little bit more about that one?
Yeah. So I also wanted to share with your audience that I did create a Tik Tok a couple of months ago, around the breakdown of how much money actually hit my bank account. Yeah. And it ranged from $107.80 in July of 2022. And then on the high end, in April of 2022. I got $27,482.97.
What? Wow, what a disparity or in terms range. Yeah,
I know. And so that's why, you know, someone came back and they asked me, they were like, Hey, how do you manage with such volatile amounts coming in? And I said, because I am doing this on the side. Like I have other places that I know, I can make rent, you know, other ways I'm generating income as well. So also a plug to diversify your streams of income. I think that's something I learned as an early age, going to garage sales with my dad and learning all the different ways that you could sell things and resell things.
But LinkedIn, yeah, so the LinkedIn creator, it was called the LinkedIn creator accelerator program. I was actually in their inaugural class. They've done a couple since then I think they've done either one or two other US cohorts since then. But LinkedIn started their LinkedIn for creators page, maybe like less than two years ago. Interesting. I do remember a year after they launched their LinkedIn for creators page, it was at a million followers. So that I don't know all the months are blurring into the same month. So the program was really focused on accelerating you on LinkedIn. And so every person who applied needed to apply with a LinkedIn related project. So my project was I want to do a 10 part LinkedIn Live series called Disability Employment works.
And I remember Ellen, when I reached out to your team about some some ideas, I was like, Ooh, maybe I can talk about my LinkedIn project. So this is me talking about my LinkedIn projects. But in addition to that, they awarded us around 15 to $20,000. So I want to say this is a pretty large amount of money. But I will say I have been part of a couple other creator programs that are trying to be competitive as well. So I was in another one that paid $7,500. I was in one that paid maybe 1500 to $2,000 different platforms. I won't name the names, but again, I think at all of these different platforms are now seeing the value of creators creating content. And what's been interesting about my own journey on LinkedIn was that when I first started on LinkedIn, this is before I saw myself as a creator, I just saw LinkedIn as the professional platform where you just share your professional accolades. Now, it's a place that you go. And this is what they really want to stress. It's a place where you spark conversations, where you have conversations around work.
And the thing is, what I learned is that I can't compartmentalize different aspects of my identity. You know, we just surpassed the second anniversary of the Atlanta spa shooting, I'm Asian, you're Asian, like, it's hard coming across these dates and how we show up in the workplace as well. So some of those conversations are showing up. And people will even come into the comments sometimes and be like, this isn't LinkedIn content, even though it goes viral, which means that it is resonating with people in one way or another. And they want to talk about these things. And one of the things I've noticed is that anytime I've talked about mental health on LinkedIn, you know, I mentioned an experience I had, where I got triggered. And here are some suggestions of what I wish would have happened or things to do instead, those actually get the most engagement for me, which I found surprising. But then as I thought about it, I'm like, we have so much work to do to still remove the stigma around mental health. And so many people I think, are thirsty to be talking about this. But that was long winded, but I wanted to share it. So there were some posting requirements related to the program, it was 10 weeks to happen from January to March of 2022. But to receive 15, to $20,000, to create some LinkedIn posts. That was that was pretty incredible.
That is incredible. And it operates I'm so glad I asked you about this, it wasn't long winded at all. By the way, I feel like every detail you gave was extremely helpful for context and context reigns Queen over here on our show. So I find it interesting that LinkedIn almost instead of the typical creator fund that let's say, tik tok and Instagram have where they pay you based on you know, impressions and and they kind of assign you this arbitrary like, you get x amount of dollars, if you hit 10 million views in 30 days, or whatever it is, it seems like LinkedIn kind of takes more of that approach of being a partner with you by investing in your business and saying, We will pay you X amount of dollars to create the content, regardless of its performance, because we believe this content matters. And that to me is I personally very much resonate with that approach. And so I'll definitely be checking out that program. But yeah,
definitely check it out. I will say the second cohort was focused very specifically on technology and innovation. And the projects that people propose were very different. Some people propose, like, Hey, I'm going to do a series of LinkedIn audio rooms, or I'm going to launch a newsletter, or I'm going to you know, and so actually, one, one little gripe I had was that they came to us and we had all these posting requirements every week that were unrelated to the project that we pitched, but we still needed to do our project. So it was almost like in addition to keeping up with with all the posts, I also had to make sure that every single week I was doing the the project that I had pitched.
I will say that part of what I love about these creator programs, not necessarily the reels, bonuses, you know where the Creator funds, but part of what I love about being in these creator programs is actually getting to meet other creators, I actually think that is worth more than $20,000 to me, and some of my fellow creators is now a New York Times bestselling illustrator for Jimmy Fallon and Jennifer Lopez, his book and another person has like three or 4 million followers on Tiktok. And another one is writing a book about personal finance for first gen folk and they're not in my niche, right. They're not all disability advocates. And it just introduces me to, hey, there are a lot of other people who are creating value add content, even your podcasts creating great content out there that is outside of my world that I want to be aware of too.
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Yeah, I could not agree with you more that I mean, and this extends beyond even creator programs. I think your philosophy or approach to this is applicable to really any sort of program that either invests in you or you invest in, right, whether you're joining paying to join a program or whether you're part of a greater program where the company is actually investing in you, I always think it's the peers that you meet that actually have the largest impact on not just your business trajectory, but really your life's experience. And so I'm really glad that you added in that extra element as a reminder to all of us that it's not even about who's leading the program, in this case, LinkedIn, it's about the people who are in the room with you. So I love that approach.
You mentioned just a moment ago, reels bonuses. And it's funny the timing of our conversation, right, because as we're recording this in real time, it's the spring of 2023. And Instagram just announced that they are canceling all reels bonus payouts for the foreseeable future. So I'd love to get your hot take on this. Tiffany, what was your initial reaction when when the news broke on this? Do you think this is for the good in the long run? Are you personally upset about this? Does this shift your strategy at all in terms of where you spend your time? I'm just curious your take on it?
Yeah, I will say in full transparency. I was a little bummed. I will say Facebook reels bonuses, I just have not cracked that I probably made like $15 total. But again, you know, daughters Asian immigrants, garage sales, like $15 is $15 and a bunch of $15. Together creates $100 1000. And probably through reels. I was probably bringing in about a little more than $100 every month. So I wasn't crushing it out of the park. But they would renew I would get the invite to renew every month. And now with the current Yeah. And with the current economic climate. I recently got interviewed for a piece in the observer about whether or not we as creators were nervous about how we would do for this year with inflation and interest rates and potentially economy and banks going under you know, like so yeah. Is it going to change my strategy?
I will say that the only reason I was posting on Facebook reels was that bonus program was for that $15 I feel like your listeners will laugh but but the $15 do add up and I was hoping maybe one of them would go really viral or something. But I think it's part of a broader like cross posting strategy for me. So where all of my kind of like native short form video content sits is on Tik Tok. One piece of advice I've gotten is that if you want to grow on YouTube, unless you're a really well established long form creator, one of the best ways to grow is through shorts. I don't really I don't know Ellen, do you have a short YouTube short strategy?
So we actually made YouTube a large focus for us this year. It's funny, you bring that up. And I actually meant to comment on what you had shared earlier, that friend who gave you the advice of if you want a long term career as a creator to focus on YouTube. That's such an interesting perspective. And I agree not only from the perspective of being a content creator, but also just even thinking back to my own habits as a content consumer. I mean, YouTube was really the first platform as a middle school kid where I was watching and spending a lot of my time. And what I find so interesting about YouTube is, in surveys, they've shown that even with the huge popularity of tik tok among younger generations, especially Gen Z and Gen alpha, they still found that the percentage of time that Gen Z spends online, they're still a larger majority who spend time on YouTube, then tik tok even though YouTube is decades older as a platform and so I don't have a specific short strategy right now, although I am planning to hire a consultant to help us with that in the spring.
But what we are doing right now is exactly what you said. We have our native short form content mostly created for Instagram, but then we're repurposing just straight up like without the watermark reposting onto YouTube and just making sure that the title is kind of geared toward a YouTube viewer. And it's done so well to grow our viewership and our subscriber count on YouTube. Even though we're a small YouTube channel under 1000. But without shorts, I don't think we would be anywhere near the growth we are at this point.
Yeah. So yeah, I think to answer your question, I'm, I'm curious where you know, Meta as a whole is going to decide those bonuses, its money is incentivizing. You know, I think I'd be remissed if I you know, like, like, Yeah, I'm a little I'm curious to see what happens but I, I don't have plans to change my current posting strategy. It works for me. I will say similar to you. It's it is a lot of reposting. But it's easy to do, and I don't mind doing it.
Absolutely. So I guess that leads us you talked about LinkedIn, we talked about Instagram, that leaves us with the Tik Tok creator fund. I mean, when we're looking at the numbers, if you're looking at 38,000 Total came from all creator programs, and we already know about 15 to 20,000 was attributed to LinkedIn. So I'm assuming that Tik Tok you made more money from Tik Tok than you did Instagram within that category. Am I correct in that assumption?
That is correct. I was also in a. So I will share Okay, so hold on. Let me see looking at my spreadsheet. So yeah, so now you know about 15 to 20k of that came from the LinkedIn program. I was in another creator program that was off platform that paid 15k. So for Tik Tok, or you mean for it wasn't hosted by tick tock, but it was for tick tock content. Got it. Okay, so So I will say that there are also programs creator programs outside of the platforms that are, you know, hoping. And again, like, I'm what you would call like a creator educator. And I think we're seeing a lot more content now around how creator educators might win through this current economic climate. But a lot of my content is about educating people.
So I'm doing a lot of at least for that other creator program that I was in, I was doing a lot of research around the history of different laws or different things that exists in disability. And everything was researched with sources. And actually, I tried to do that with a lot of my like, broader disability advocacy things. But yeah, that was a tik tok program.
And then I will say part of why I continue to post on Tik Tok as like my main short form video content, is it is the only platform that I have had a what's called a managed creator. So what that means is that if you have a large enough platform, or the social media platform, actually, I've had one on LinkedIn to sorry, but tick tock was first. So if you have a large enough platform, or they think your content is valuable enough, you will get a dedicated rep who works at that company, who's there to help you ensure that you are successful on that platform. So what I have heard is that from a YouTube perspective, there are some YouTube managers who go and look for big tick talkers, and see if they can bring them over to YouTube. So that's an example of and actually, I think, in the LinkedIn program that I did, they actually brought on some people who have large followings on other platforms and brought them into this creator program so that they could start to build their platform on LinkedIn.
Interesting, okay, I didn't even again, things that I'm not aware of, because I'm not active on Tik Tok. I'm just kind of like a lurker on there.
But Instagram has managed creators, Facebook, you could have a managed creator, I just don't YouTube has managed creators and effectively there they're not really doing that much. Or actually they do a lot sorry, I don't want to put shade on the Creator managers. But what they do do is they make you feel like you're important?
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to get direct access to any social platforms customer service. And so to your point, having a direct line of contact does really help simplify and make things convenient. On On the occasions where issues do you arise?
Yes. And I will say there have been three instances. The first one was someone made a comment. So as I mentioned, my arm is paralyzed, I get a lot of comments from people saying, you should just cut off your arm. It's useless. And I saw Ellen's reaction there, if you're watching the video as a surprise, surprise, but I get comments like that a lot. And so I recorded a response video saying, hey, like, don't call anyone's body that because like, here are the things that I do use my arm for, even though is limited mobility. But I tried to make it funny. So I included a picture of a knife when I was reading someone's comment to me, and that was seen as as violent. Yeah, yeah. And so and so that was flagged, and I went through my creator manager. And we found a way to repost it that didn't have that. And something like that has happened a couple times.
And so I think this actually does lead to another lesson around kind of being marketable is that I try to make my content like family friendly, I don't know it's disability, it should be family friendly. But even though it's advocacy, and it could be seen as our existence is political, you know, but I want to do it in a way that's educational. And that's fun, and doesn't shame anyone, like one of the things that I've learned, and that I repeat is that learning should never be about shame. And so there are some tick tock creators who have gotten really big, because all they do is put other people on blast for things that they've said. And I will say, I go back, and I watched some of my old speaking videos sometimes, and I've used outdated language.
And I've actually taken clips of those and made stitches and said, Hey, I'm learning. I used to describe my disability as my funny hands. And I'm, like, I have learned because it gave permission for other people to describe my body that way. And I would never describe other people's bodies as funny. So yeah, it's like learning isn't about shame. But also my content is always through that lens of, hey, I'm learning and I want you to learn alongside me too. And I think some of the brands that I've gotten to work with and even some of these creator programs that I've been in, have also seen that too, and say, Hey, you're sharing this educational content, you have your research and your sources cited, we know that you can't single handedly dismantle the system of oppression that is ableism. But we want to support you by providing you some funds, because we know that historically and systemically, you and the communities that you are represent have been underpaid, underemployed, unemployed, not even paid a lot of free labor.
i Yeah, you are totally right. I'm still sitting here a little bit shocked that someone would say to any other human that if their body part isn't working the way that they think it should that it should be cut off. That's that's just absolutely wild. For me, someone would even think to say that the the words that come out of people's mouths, when they're behind the shield of a screen is always astonishing to me.
But I really, really appreciate your approach on never tying shame with learning. And I think that is so comforting, and really brings in more people to the work that you care about to your advocacy. Because I think shame is a reason a lot of people stay away from learning about things that are uncomfortable because they don't want to have to look themselves in the mirror and go, Oh, am I now a bad person? Or am I a horrible human being? Because I've done these things in the past that I just wasn't aware of. So I think your open door approach to like, hey, come join the conversation. I'm not perfect either. We're all learning alongside each other, is just such a beautiful approach to education. So I really appreciate that, personally.
One last thought here on creator funds before we move into UGC because that's actually a topic we've never broached on the podcast. So I of course have to ask you about it. But if you are listening to this episode right now, and you're like, Oh, my goodness, I didn't even know all these different type of creator programs and creator funds and all these things even existed. I actually gave a month by month recap of exactly what Instagram paid me last year when I had 29,000 followers on Instagram, broke that down and then kind of gave my overarching thoughts on creator funds as a whole and how that fits into your business plan as an entrepreneur uniquely. So if you're curious about that, that was a bonus episode on the podcast, we'll make sure to link it in the show notes below. You can scroll below and listen to that if you want to further partake in this conversation.
But let's move into Tiffany for you your third category of how you make money as a content creator on the side and that is UGC, user generated content. You call it features. For those who don't understand what UGC is, can you define that first and then talk about how you're doing that work with brands?
Yeah, so I call it features because some parts are UGC. But I got paid $10,000, because someone wanted to use my picture on their social media page. That doesn't feel like UGC, to me. And they made all of the content or the marketing agency did. It was just like, hey, we like what you're about. And I think I also want to highlight that I have a feeling that some parts of this might feel like unrelatable or unattainable. But I spent a lot of time building up what I stood for.
And I think that now, you know, I call myself like a 14 year overnight success story like this, this did not happen randomly. I spent many, many years actually sharing the same things in person that I share now on social media, and on social media, people are like, wow, I had no idea. This is the first time I'm ever hearing this. And I think back and I'm like, in 2009, I had said this, and you can go on this article. But I have to remind myself, I call this like the reset. Like every conversation, I have every person who sees my content for the first time. Like you said, context just wins. I need to provide context. I need to you know, keep it as approachable and digestible as possible. Right? But yeah, coming back to the features. So yeah, it's a combination of UGC, but it doesn't feel like UGC to me. I don't know, I don't know,
I get what you're saying. Because essentially, like in the example, you just gave us someone's in essence, licensing your photo or your image, they're really paying for name image likeness, right, they're paying for the ability to slap your face on their content, with your permission, of course, and to use your image or the credibility you've built up. If someone comes across whatever content they've created, they associate it with you and your brand, in the very same way that I guess for listeners, the way I would associate this with like, a more common real life analogy is an athlete, let's say being on a cereal box, right? It's that kind of unofficial or official, in this case, endorsement of that athlete saying yes, you can use my name image likeness on this brand or for this content. And I'm giving you permission to associate my personality, my brand, my credibility with whatever you're creating. So I get what you're saying features is different from UGC. So I guess Yeah,
I mean, there is I think there were three like UGC type deals where it was, I still have to make all the content, but it never needs to show up on my channels. I will say a lot of people are finding their way into content creation and into monetizing as a content creator. I don't think that this is your target audience, though could be, which is maybe you haven't so what you were saying before about the athlete to me, what the $10,000 was, was my personal brand equity.
That's like the best way I understand is that they saw value in Tiffany Yu equity and wanted that on their feet. Versus for UGC. I don't think that they would have cared if it was Tiffany or I don't want to use care care or not care, but it could have been anyone. And they had a flat rate. But I will say for the for the three pieces of UGC that I did do. One was around showcasing how I create content as someone who has an upper extremity disabilities. So that was specific to me. One was more mental health related and wanting to learn more about my mental health journey, and I have a very specific journey there as well. And I can't remember the last one, but again, I think there's some personal brand equity in those as well, which is why they didn't feel exactly like UGC because a lot of UGC is like, let me show you this, this product and you don't see my face, you know, but But yeah, I don't know, Have you have you ventured into UGC?
I have not before personally, and I love the way you phrased personal brand equity by the way, that's such a great term because yes, they are buying into your already established brand and credibility and that's why they're, you know, using your your image or your likeness. But to clarify for any of our listeners who may have not experienced UGC, or been part of this world, like Tiffany said, essentially, UGC is let's say you're an amazing videographer, and you create really amazing creative, right actual content. But let's say you yourself, have no audience or a very small audience or a personal brand that doesn't have a lot of equity built up in it yet meaning a lot of resonance or influence or whatever you want to call it.
And so maybe a brand comes across let's say you I don't know. This is a silly example. But let's say you made this amazing video about your morning coffee routine, and you use a Keurig in it, let's say and here it comes across this video and they're like, oh my goodness, this is amazing. We want to use Is this video in our ads? In this case, if they decided to ask you for the usage rights to that video, or if they asked you to create a brand new video, let's say with some of their new line of products coming out, and you create that content, and then give it to them, and they distribute and publish it on Keurigs channels. At that point, it's UGC, because you are only in charge of creating the content and giving the brand, the ability to use it, you yourself are not publishing, posting or distributing this content on your own channel. So you're not sharing it with your audience, you're not putting it in your email, you're just in charge of creation, not distribution. And so that's kind of like the way I think about UGC and Tiffany, if you have anything to add there, feel free to jump in. But that's kind of how I would define it.
So the other thing I kind of keep in mind, which is tied into my pricing, is that my arm is paralyzed. I don't know how you make content, Ellen, but a lot of it is on the phone, it's filming things. And I and I filmed most things about myself with my tripod. And it's getting creative about all the different angles and, and stuff like that. And so I take that into account, I'm like, I'm a part time creator, what is the threshold to me, price wise, for me willing to do this, if it's video content, that's going to require a little bit more.
And so if someone you know, sometimes I'll have brands and they'll say, Well, other creators that you're following are charging this and then I'm like, well, that's great. That's that that's them. That's what they're willing to do this for. And this is what I'm willing to do it for.
So I advocate for this thing, because I know you asked about pricing, and I didn't give you a direct answer. I call it pressure testing your pricing. I mean, you could go out and say, Well, my price is $10,000. But if no one has paid you that yet, then maybe you need to pressure test and see for the brands that you really want to work with, like Where where are you landing. And so the fact that at 5000, Instagram followers and 5000 Twitter followers, I charged $5,000. And that's what they paid me then I was like, Ooh, maybe the next one, I'm going to charge 8000 Or the next I'm going to charge 10,000. And that's kind of how I've personally navigated it.
To me, it's been less about the followers. And again, Ellen, I come back to this, like personal brand equity, the fact that like, as you continue to invest in your personal brand, you're going to build equity there, whether that's going on a bunch of podcasts like this, or creating your own content or getting featured or doing speaking like the more people who know what you're about, the more equity you're going to build. And there's a price associated with that equity as well.
100%. To your point, it's the difference between, if you Tiffany, speak about something versus a random person on the street, saying the exact same words, but without having built up that brand equity, it lands different, right, people will pay attention or take action differently, depending on who the carrier of the message is. So I really love that you emphasize that point.
I want to circle back to wrap up this case study with the brand partnerships piece a lot of our listeners are I mean, I'm sure a section of our listeners are content creators full time or consider themselves influencers full time, where content creation is their entire business. We also have a few fellow media companies like ourselves, who are podcasters, newsletter creators, blogs, whatnot. But for the most part, I would say our audience is running either an online or in person business that sells a product or service that is not based on selling content as the actual product, but rather using content as a marketing channel for their actual products and services. So I'm sure you've intrigued a lot of minds today and hearing Oh, okay. So like I didn't even know that as the leader or founder or face of my company. I can also create an income stream as a content creator.
What would be your best advice for if someone has never done a brand deal before and they're just thinking about how they can make that first deal happen as a part time content creator like yourself, Where Where would you suggest they start today?
Yeah. So I feel like we didn't even talk about pitching, although I think that's probably a big part of it. So what I usually recommend, because when I posted when I posted that Tik Tok, where I shared that I made $100, one month and then $27,000 another month, I got a lot of questions. And I got actually a lot of questions from friends who have millions more followers than I have, and have never done a brand deal did not even know don't even know where to start. So if you don't know where to start, what I have usually told people is there are three things you can do.
Number one is you need to let people know that you're open to doing brand deals. So if you go to my personal website, Tiffanyyu.com. You can see a section called partnerships and it may be a little outdated But I have a couple examples of brand partnerships that I've done in the past. So then when anyone goes to my website, they know, okay, we can hire Tiffany to speak, we can hire her for one on one work, we can hire her to do brand partnerships. And for my friends who have millions of followers, they don't even have their email address, anywhere that I can find it. And then when I go to their Link in bio, it's like to their business, which was like a construction company. But again, nothing pointing to, if a brand is interested in reaching out, they don't even know where to go. So that's number one. And I think you'll see in some people's Instagram bios, they'll put like brands slash collabs, and then an email. But now there's like a little place where you can just have an email button on there. But also, if people don't can't find the email, maybe they'll DM you as well. So that's number one.
Number two is if you are interested in doing more brand partnerships, you know, I will say in full transparency that I don't like that 65% of my creator income, like the majority of it is coming from brand partnerships, because those budgets are changing all the time and can be inconsistent. There are something called influencer marketplaces that you can go to, and a couple of the ones that I have successfully used. One is called Obviously, and their rates, you know, sometimes I've seen $2,000 brand deals come in at I don't know how they figure out the pricing of as depending on your followership or other things. And then then I think you can go in and pitch what your rate is to Aspire IQ is another one that I have personally used. There are so many out there, like too many, which also means that there are a lot of brands that are looking for creators to work with.
It might be lower dollar amounts in the beginning, but you just want to have those first couple of case studies in the beginning that you can put together. So I actually don't have a media kit. So I can't, you know, you can talk to other creators who say a media kit is required. It shows what type of content you create, where you've been featured all your metrics, blah, blah, I don't have one. So I don't know if I'm the best person to follow. But what the influencer marketplaces will help you do, though, also, is to let you know what brands have worked with creators before or have worked with influencers before. So that even if you don't do something on platform, maybe you can reach out to them on the side and say, Hey, like I've seen that you've worked with creators before, here's the type of content that I create. Here's my idea for how we can potentially work together would you be interested? So that was kind of like number two...
I just want to add a quick comment on Obviously, since that's an influencer marketplace, I have used another one in college that I was familiar with is Influenster. Again, we'll put these names down below in the show notes, if you want to know the spellings. But to Tiffany's point, I think it's a great starting place to reverse engineer and find out what brands have budgets in the first place. But also, like Tiffany said, to build up your portfolio of brands you've worked with, or case studies, because it's always going to be easier for the next brand to say yes, than the first brand to say yes. So it's a great way to build up that portfolio.
That said, I will say if you have a micro audience, so anything really under 100,000, on a platform, it in my opinion, pays pennies compared to the value that you can actually broker and negotiate on your own if you pitch your own brand deals. So I almost never go through those marketplaces anymore for actual partnerships. But it's a great yeah, it's a great starting point to just get the first one or two under your belt, so that you even understand the process of what it looks like to work with a brand. Because that's a whole learning curve, that if you've never done that before, you have to kind of learn the language of this industry, right? And you're gonna have to learn what that process looks like what creative approvals look like what talking with a brand rep looks like. So it's a good way to accelerate your learning while getting paid for it. That's kind of how I would think about it. Instead of trying to utilize it as a revenue generator from the get go.
Correct. I would say use the influencer marketplaces as the starting point. So that you can get a couple of brands under your belt if again, if you're new. And then after a certain point in time, brands will know that this is something that you do and maybe they'll reach out to you or you can reach out to them.
And you want to be creating the type of content that a brand could see themselves in. And then I have one quick case study I want to share at the end. But if you go to my feed, and some will recommend that you don't do this, but sometimes if you go to some people's feed and you click on who's tagged, they will tag like every single thing that they're wearing. And some people will say don't do that because you're giving the brand free exposure.
But what it does now especially on Instagram, it goes into their inbox, their social media manager sees it they see that you already love the brand. And I will say I have had a couple of inquiries. I don't know if any of them have turned into deals yet. But I have had a couple of brands that I love that we've created did like a parasocial relationship on social media because I love their shoes, or their jacket I wear all the time, or their backpack is the only one that I travel with, or this microphone I use on all my podcasts, you know, so, because if you think about doing a deal, like I think about that first $5,000 deal in 2019, you could not tell that was an ad. I mean, even though it was there was hashtag ad in it, you know, and you got to make sure you include all those disclosures. But it was so aligned with what I was already posting about. Versus if you are someone who usually posts I don't know about sneakers, and then all of a sudden, I see you doing an ad for a vacuum cleaner or for a trash can or something. As someone who follows you, I'm just going to be like, what happened here. And the brand also wants to make sure that there's consistency in what you're posting. So that normally doesn't like not feel like an ad, even though you have all the disclosures on there, they know that your audience is used to like, Oh, Tiffany just asked me to sign this thing for diversity and inclusion. And that's everything that she talks about on her channel, I'm gonna sign this thing. And so that was kind of my third piece of advice.
I wanted to share a quick case study, though, about pricing, which I think will help illuminate some things. So one of these marketplaces actually reached out to me and said, Hey, we want you to work on this campaign. And we're going to pay you based on your following $400. For two reels. Again, full disclosure, I have a rep now, so I forwarded over to my rep, even though I would have done this part in the negotiation myself, but I wouldn't have known how to like itemize all the different things. And that's what I think a rep is actually good for, because I still would not be the expert to talk to you about all the different aspects of a deal. But we've negotiated that deal off to one reel for $3,500. So before it was one reel for $200. Right, and they wanted to one for $3,500. Keep in mind that years ago, I got paid for a couple Instagram posts and tweets for $5,000. Right. So it also made me wonder who accepted that for the two reels for $400. And it just goes to show there's huge discrepancy.
You know, even if you go on to Clara for creators or some of the other resources. And you look at people's followership, I mean, there are some people who have millions of followers who charge like $17,000 per deal, right? I think maybe that's the dream for some of us, because then you only have to do a couple big deals per year. But I wanted to share that that always ask if there's room in the budget, if they say no, and you still want to do it at $400, because you really care about it and it's brand aligned, then that's your decision, I will say I have had a couple of brands, like I'll share my rates, and they're like, whoa, that's way out of our budget, we both have to be okay, walking away. So it's it's a little bit of a game, the negotiation. But I also think that I'm now in a place where I make a lot less branded content, and get paid at higher rates, which is helpful for me and my disability in my lifestyle, and also running my business
100%. And I think it circles back to the thing you said at the very beginning of our conversation, which is you have to evaluate every allocation of your time and your energy and your resources as an opportunity costs. If you say yes to creating these two rails, what is it taking away from with your advocacy work? What is it taking away from from your home life? What is it taking away from, I don't know your you time just to be with yourself and, and all of those things have value in different priorities for different people.
So depending on the season of your life or business, you may find yourself more likely to say yes for certain things versus other times. And I think you just have to have clarity on what your own Northstar is. And as long as you have that, it makes it much easier for you to be able to, you know, be in those negotiations with competence and be able to walk away with confidence if it doesn't end up being an aligned fit. So, Tiffany, I am again, just so grateful for all of your transparency today. And especially the level of detail that you shared in terms of dollar amounts, in your own case studies.
I haven't had an opportunity to get to talk about this side of my multi hyphenate life so we can go listen to other podcasts for the disability advocacy stuff.
You're amazing. Well, if there's a favorite one or two interviews in the past that you feel like our listeners should start with feel free to email that over and we'll put it in the show notes so that they have a starting place. But last thing, what is the best place for people to continue to follow your work connect with you and engage in the advocacy work that you do for people with disabilities?
Sure, so you can follow me Tiffanyyu.com We'll have all links to my social channels but I'm @ImTiffanyYu across social channels, that's the letter I the letter M followed by my first and last name. And then if you're interested in More like disability like super disco I talk about all different types of things, my channels and you'll notice our brands are very different to I think that's something that has been important to me. But if you're focused on disability ally ship like getting a more a choir of voices in terms of your own education, you can follow diversability across social channels as well.
Amazing. Thank you so much for your time today.
Hey, Ellen here, thank you again for tuning in to cubicle to CEO. If you enjoyed today's episode, follow our show on Instagram at cubicle to CEO for more bonus content and hop on the last Tuesday of each month to watch our live after show with recent guests. If you want to support our podcast, text a episode link to a friend, leave a positive review on Apple podcasts or rate our show wherever you're listening right now. Please make sure you also hit the Follow button on Apple it looks like a plus sign. Or click Subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don't miss out on our new episodes every Monday and friends until next time, keep dreaming big
