Hello Grasshoppa,
It is a busy weekend for me & I am currently in the airport waiting to board my flight back to Penang. I had my first BJJ competition this year where I ended up winning silver, however, I had to pull out of my final match due to an injury. Overall, I had so much fun. This time around, I am competing as the official athlete of a BJJ brand called Hyperfly Asia, one of the biggest BJJ brands in the world.
Since I started to compete in MMA in 2013 & made my debut in ONE Championship, I have been working & collaborating with multiple brands for my fight & competition. Over the span of nearly a decade of competing as an athlete, I have collaborated with some smaller brands & bigger brands like Shopee, Bio-Life, Tune Talk, TNT Express & recently Hyperfly Asia.
1. What Is Your Value?Getting sponsored or brand collaboration can be quite challenging especially when you start off with a limited amount of media presence & influence. Personally, it is easy because I managed to fight for ONE Championship. Before you start to work with your potential sponsor or brands, you should always be aware of the value that you are able to bring to the table. Ask yourself, what is your value? Once you have the answer, the collaboration will definitely be seamless.
2. Finding Brands & Learning To Negotiate
In my experience, I have been approached & also approached those potential brands for collaboration. If you are approached, it is easy since the brands are able to see your value & all you have to do is to negotiate terms that are able to benefit both parties. To approach potential brands, there is this process of “pitching”, where you have to share with them the value that you are able to add to their brands. This is why you have to know your value from the start. If they are interested to work with you, this is where you have to negotiate the best terms for each other. In my years of working with different brands, my advice is, that you have to never settle for any deal that is anything lesser than your value or worth. Some brand collaboration can be a handshake or simple written contract & some can be in a lengthy legal contract. Always get legal advice especially when it comes to a legal stamped contract. Once the negotiation is done, usually there will be a period or non-expiry contract between you & the brands. It really depends on how comfortable you are with the contract upon negotiation. You can always renegotiate if your value has increased.
3. Putting The Word Out There Along With Discount Code
Assume that the contract is signed & agreed on, this is where you have to make an announcement on any of the approved platforms along with the approved format by those brands. Usually, upon the announcement, you will tend to see a surge in terms of your social media reach & my advice is, to use this as an advantage & try to stay active between that week on your social media. Most brand collaboration comes with a sales or promo code which I usually get excited about. These discount codes not only help you with extra income but also help your followers to earn a certain percentage of discount between 10-20%. Of course, the more your code is used, it benefits the brand sales as well. To make my discount code visible across all possible platforms, I’m sharing it as often as possible across all platforms such as my blog, YouTube channel, Instagram & other platforms. Trust me, the more often you post, you will definitely see an increase in terms of sales.
4. What’s Next?Upon getting all the steps done, the most important thing is that you should always be in touch with your brand representative. Not on a daily basis but on a monthly basis to discuss what can be done better & overall updates. I usually do that with the brands I collaborate with & in between all those conversations, I met some really good friends in the process.
Conclusion:
Getting sponsored or collaborating with brands does not mean that you need to have a huge influence or followers. I personally think that value is more important compared to the influence & followers. As long as you have the value, all you have to do is to negotiate why you think you can grow those potential brands that you plan to collaborate with & tell them why you are a great addition to their collaboration or sponsored team. As long as you are confident & able to deliver the agreed result, the collaboration will definitely be mutually beneficial for both parties.
OSS!
You can also check out my latest YouTube video on How To Invest Like Warren Buffett:
