Hey, Alex here. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to invite you to a virtual event that I'm hosting titled Podcasting Made Simple Live. It's for podcasts hosts and guests who want to grow their influence, revenue, and expertise on either side of the microphone. To see the details and to get a free ticket, please visit podmatch.com slash event. Tickets are normally $97, but if you enter code PM Live, you'll get free VIP access,

which is just my way of saying thank you for listening to this podcast. And now let's get into

today's episode. You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple. We all dream of bringing our

creative visions to life, but funding those projects can be challenging.

Brand sponsorships can be the key to turning those dreams into reality.

Wow.

Maintaining your independence and artistic integrity.

So today, we're going to talk about how to craft a sponsorship

pitch that no brand will ignore. So let me start with a story. So a few years back, my wife and I

received an incredible email. It said, hey, Justin, great news. We're approved to move forward with our

Harmony of the Seas opportunity and have you on our launch sale from June 5th to the 7th.

Now, this ship had 18 decks, 15 restaurants, a crew of 2,100 people to run it.

There was even one person whose entire job was to sharpen the ice skates for the ice rink.

Oh, and one more thing. The ultimate abyss, a 10-story water slide. See, Royal Caribbean was offering to fly us to

Spain to check out their new ship. Pretty amazing, right? But to explain how we landed that

opportunity, we need to go back to the beginning. Because when I started

pitching brands and companies in 2009, my messages sounded something like this. Oh, I love your

brand. I want to collaborate? Does that sound familiar? See, back then, influencer marketing wasn't really a thing.

The iPhone 3G was the hottest phone, and Avatar, the first one, was just hitting theaters.

So April had grown her following to about 30,000 followers at that time, and I convinced her to let me try

getting some honeymoon discounts. So I sent hundreds of emails to hotels in Asia, which is where we

wanted to go. The results? Well, mostly undeliverable messages. No thanks or absolute silence.

...