Have you ever wondered how to approach a brand about sponsorship or have you been a brand and been approached in what you think isn’t quite the right way in order to attain your support If they are a rider or an influencer who was contacted you? Today I’m looking at five ways not to approach a brand because I think that it’s important to talk about how to do it, but also the big red flags, flashing beacons, whatever you want to say about how not to do it -I think this can be just as valuable because not only do we look at key points that are not a good way to woo people or get them on side, but also the thought behind that I think is a really interesting thing to explore. So this podcast today, if you are a rider, an influencer, a blogger, whatever, absolutely ideal for you, five ways not to approach a brand, but also if you’re a brand.

I know that sometimes when we get approached, and I know that I get approached more than you’d think actually. And I know clients I work with get approached as well, and you get these messages and you kind of think, Oh what? And it makes you feel weird and uncharitable and unpleasant, all the emotions. And I think actually putting a bit of context behind that feeling and kind of saying, yeah, you’re completely legitimate in feeling like that is also really important too. Because you know, a lot of us work on our own. A lot of us are small businesses. A lot of us make these decisions about who to support, who to sponsor brand ambassadors on our own. And sometimes it can be really difficult because we get these messages and then we think, Oh well we’ve been unreasonable by saying no, but actually that really isn’t always the case.

So in the kind of style of this showing my age, but if you remember what not to wear, which was a programme on, I want to say BBC with Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine- not quite sure I pronounce that correctly. And they had this programme called what not to wear. And obviously through talking about what not to wear, they showed you what to wear. Um, it was brilliant. I flipping loved that programme -please bring it back. So this is ways not to approach a brand. So you know, I’m kind of harnessing that theme. So these are just five ways. Obviously you could probably write a book with ways to wind people up and not to approach them. But I thought let’s focus on just five ways. And some of them you’ll kind of go, what? And you’ll probably laugh, but then I bet if you are a brand you will laugh in a knowing way.

And if you are an ambassador who has been doing things correctly, you’ll think no one does that. They do. Trust me on that. So the first thing that sounds so obvious is make sure you’ve got the right name. Right. So I am much more pro approach via email because to me that shows that someone’s put a bit of time and effort into it. I’m not a massive fan of the approaches by direct message on Facebook and Instagram. I feel they’re quite impersonal and I feel like I’ve been copied and pasted a million times over. Sometimes I feel like that and that might not be valid. Other times I have worked with brands who have actually received messages when they have been called the wrong name and I don’t mean they wanted to speak to Sara at insert name of company and they have said the wrong name.

I mean they’ve got the name of the company completely wrong and not just a misspelling. They have called the company the different name and sometimes the name of the competitor, which I really enjoy. This sounds crazy, but it has happened to me more than once. It’s a really special moment and even if that person has actually got a lot of ticks in their boxes, the fact that they couldn’t get the name right and they have therefore not been selective over who they’re contacting and they are just contacting anybody instantly puts a big old cross next to their name in my book, so in my, in my opinion, the perfect approach is by email doing the research to make sure you’ve found the right person and the right person to contact and contacting them. That way if you are going to approach them by direct message, which is a legitimate thing and people do do it, I’d obviously make sure you put in the groundwork first.

I’m sure we’ve talked about that in a previous episode, but don’t call them the wrong name. If you love X brand pitch to X brand, don’t put Xs pitch to Y brand. Be selective about who you work with because you cannot work with everybody and you really, really shouldn’t. It just makes people look a little bit kind of flaky and like they haven’t got any loyalty and it’s not good for you. If you are representing a million brands or jumping between brands that do the same thing, it doesn’t come over very well. It really, really doesn’t. And if you are showing that already at the stage when you’re trying to pitch and you’re trying to woo people and impress them, it’s not going to look good on you. So please top tip one. Make sure you address it to the right company or the right name.

Ideally you want to know who you’re dealing with. Ideally you want that first name, but if you don’t have the first name you could contact them or DM and say that you’d really like to speak to the person responsible for working with influencers, brand ambassadors, sponsored riders, however you want to word it. Could you have their details or is it better to contact via direct message? Completely fine because it can be difficult sometimes getting to the person who’s in charge of influencer marketing or sponsorship or however it’s worded by that particular brand. Completely get that. So don’t be afraid of reaching out via DM. But I think when you are trying to put together a really good case for somebody to give you something for free, you need to put in the time. One of that is making sure you’re addressing the right person and definitely the right company that has genuinely happened to me on more than one occasion. I had a DM come in to a client’s, um, DM inbox. Um, the first time it happened was a few years ago now. And I didn’t know whether to laugh or smash my head off the table, but it was, it was literally dear name of competitor. I really love your brand. I really love this, this, this. And I was like, okay, interesting. And then I had another DM come in saying…

Oh my God, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I’ve sent it to the wrong person. I really love y’our brand!

And then I thought of course you do. Of course you do love. And um, that was just a big old cross in their name. I know we all make mistakes and don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I don’t make mistakes at all, but to me that just proved you that you’re not particularly invested in the company and um, actually you don’t care where you get the free product from. You don’t even know nor care. And if that’s the case, you’re not going to be a brand advocate that I would advise a client to associate with just because you know, you’re just after product, and that product has a value. And if they are giving it to you, they’re not giving it to somebody else who might be an absolutely perfect fit. Flag-waving cheerleader. That’s where I want the product to go.

So first thing, get the name right. Second thing I’ve had a lot of people come to me about this, so this is you. This usually happens via direct message. You get a message from somebody saying, would you like to sponsor me? And then you don’t reply, you know, within a second and someone sends a message back with a series of question marks. Oh my goodness. And I wish I could tell you this was an urban legend, but it isn’t at all. All it does is annoy people. If you want to send somebody a polite reminder after an amount of time, like a week or something, that’s one thing. If you’re just sending a line of question marks, a line of question marks to somebody that you want to work with, somebody who is probably running around like a mad person doing all the jobs, trying to get so many things sorted and you have the audacity to send them a line of question marks because they didn’t get back to you in the millisecond after you made an unsolicited request to them.

You are not going to be working with them. It’s just flippant, rude. But I know that if you’re listening to this podcast, you are not a question mark kind of person. You are not a DM line of question mark kind of person. Thank goodness, but even if it has ever entered your mind, please don’t. And again, I kind of, I want to tell you this because I want you to realise as well what brands put up with. So when you as an ambassador or potential sponsor or something else wants to work with somebody, realise that you will not be the only person that’s approached them that week and also realise what they’re up against. And I’m not saying this because you shouldn’t approach them, I’m saying this is why you need to shine because the competition is really hot and there are so many people out there doing a really poor job of the initial approach that it makes it so much harder for you who wants to work with the brand.

Who want to do a good thing, who wants to approach them properly, but this is what they’re up against. So be aware of this and that’s where you need to shine and why you need to really think about how you approach people as well as how you work with them going forward. But the approach is definitely key. So that’s question marks. Don’t do that. Not cool. The next point, on ways not to approach a brand is just to tell them what you want. So I’d like you to sponsor me. I would like … don’t go in for that. If you are looking to kind of court somebody, court, I’ve just clearly gone back to the 1950s, if you’re looking to woo somebody, you don’t go in with what what they can give you. If you think about it like a date, if you’re going on a date with someone, you don’t sit down and go, so my plan is I want to get married and have children in the next two years and I’m like no way.

Let them get to know you before you start trying to get them down the aisle. You know, you’ve got to woo them people. So don’t approach them and say, I would like you to sponsor me. I would like this, this, this, this and this because Jesus please just don’t. It’s just rude and you haven’t even gotten to the stage where they are opening a discussion with you about the potential of working together, let alone what you’d like your order to be or what level they want to work with you at or anything. A lot of brands, we’ll start by gifting a product realistically a product of their choice. And that’s how I advise people to start working with potential brand ambassadors to give them a product and then see what happens. Because that way you haven’t got a massive amount of money tied up in it.

And if from a brand point of view, you’re protecting yourself. If you give one person, let’s say 500 pounds worth of product, although obviously a brand doesn’t pay the retail value for it, that has got a cost and it’s also cost that they are taking because they can’t sell it on. But more than that, if you put 500 pounds in one person and they don’t do what you expect, they don’t do what you would like and you are horribly disappointed, you’re going to have a job on getting that product back. Especially if it’s a product that is like a consumable. But even if it’s not, you know, a worn, let’s say, rug, a worn pair of jodhpurs with a jacket and everything else, you’re going to struggle to sell that in any way. So you’ve lost that investment. But if you had your 500 pounds as your kind of influencer budget and you spread that out amongst let’s say 10 people, you could get a much better gauge as to who was performing well and who you wanted to do more with and that’s what I would always recommend.

I’m not a kind of put your all put eggs in one basket, kind of gal. I like to spread the, I’m going to say risk, but it’s not a risk. I want to spread the opportunity actually because if I’ve got 10 people who I’m interested in and I can give them all the opportunities to shine, let’s be honest, if those 10 people absolutely knock it out the park and I’m getting referrals and orders as a brand, I’ll be looking to support all 10 of them. I might use them in slightly different ways because I might find that their demographic and I’ll try with different products. I might find that their particular demographic is more dressage or more whatever, but I have the opportunity to do that if I’ve done it. If I spread my 500 pound punt for want of a better word against across all the people.

So don’t expect to make an approach and lists what you want. You will get the chance for that conversation as you go further down the conversation with them. But don’t give him with that pitch, don’t expect them to say yes. Don’t expect them to give you exactly what you want. I think it’s really important that you have that communication because you, if you’re a dressage rider you don’t, and I’m giving you a product that’s you know, event grease or something. I’m just being really random. But, or if you’re a dressage rider, sorry, if you’re an eventer, you don’t really want them to go, Hey, potentially giving you something that’s really specific to dressage like bling plaiting bands. I don’t know. You know what I mean? So obviously as you get more into the conversation, you start working together, you have got the opportunity there to talk about what would work for you and you should talk about what would work for you because there’s no point in the brand giving you something that you are never going to use because it’s not going to do you any favours because you’re not going to use it.

It’s not going to help the brand because you’re not going to use the product. So you know everyone’s a loser. I’m not saying you shouldn’t put forward what you would like to have, but you shouldn’t put it forward when you’re pitching to them, when you’re trying to get them to work with you. That is for a much later conversation when you’ve established that they do want to work with you and you’ve got scope there to work together and move forward. So point 3 don’t pitch with what you want from them. Point four in ways not to approach brand is to show you have no interest or knowledge of the product. Again, this has happened so many times we get, um, for different brands I work with, we can get DM saying, Oh, I love your product, but and when you look, you realise that they’ve never bought your product, they’ve never used your product.

And in some amazing cases they are using a competitor’s product and they are tagging that competitor and using that competitor’s product and featuring that competitor’s product, all their feed, they’ve never so much as apparently thought about your products apart from when it comes to getting it for free. So to me, I would be like, well, why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you be approaching the competitor that you use all the time? Because you know what I mean? It’s, you’ve got to think about the audience as well. So your audience, you’ll be here, you’re going, I use this let’s say, saddle soap all the time, it’s amazing. It makes my saddle you know, really rich and nourished and look, you know, shiny or whatever. I love it. And then the next day you’re using something completely different. Oh, I love this product now.

Well what, why? Obviously you can change product, but if you want to work with a brand, do use the product first. It’s really important to show you have that knowledge of the product. It’s really important to show the brand. You have that image of the product, but also from your, your fans and followers point of view. If you’re just jumping around products that you’ve just clearly been given for free and that is basically the basis for you using a product. Not cool, not good at all. If I have someone approach me and say, approach a brand that I’m working with and say, um, I was wondering how many openings for ambassadors or people to work with, I use your X product on my horses. It has helped them add a condition, get them a shiny coat, whatever, um, or really, really rated it makes such a difference.

Here’s a picture of my horse wearing said thing. I’m much more likely to think, hang on a minute. This is actually a cheerleader. This is somebody who gets the brand, who gets the quality, who has spent their own hard earned cash on this product. They are the ones that I am much more likely to say to a brand actually that this could be somebody we should consider. Look at what they’ve done already. They already own this product. They already own this product. They’re already, and they’re already a flag waver. We could support them further, not just to repay it and say thank you for what you’ve done so far, but if they’ve already got an audience that are receptive and interested in what we’re doing on our brand, that’s gonna make it much easier to integrate what we want to do. And when they say it’s gifted, it fits.

It’s not just like we are a brand who has gone right. We need some people with big followings. Actually they could have some stuff. I know they didn’t use it, but they can have it. It’s a conscious decision and I think it’s good one, on the wider base. It’s good for your supporters, but it’s good for the brand to show that they are associating with people who get the brand already. And I think that’s so important. You know, everybody has the potential to be an influencer and whether you have a really small following but a really engaged following or a massive engaged following, you are still making, you are still influencing people in their decisions, which is really great. But when you do that, you have to make sure you make good choices. And that sounds really kind of deep. But I, for example, I’m, I’m lucky that I get gifted, um, products from the brands that I work with and also some other brands that I have bought and loved and used for ever.

And I’m happy talking about those because I really like the brand and product. I actually get approached a lot from other people about promoting stuff that they do. And I don’t do it because I don’t know the product. I don’t know/like the brand and I don’t need to do it. This isn’t new. But influencing people isn’t my main line of work. And if you’re a rider, it’s not your main line of work. You need to have that integrity because I’m in this for the long game. When I get gifted items and I talk about them, um, I obviously tell you I have the item gifted, but also like I, I want to work with these people longterm. I don’t have the energy, time or scope to be chasing around after things. I want to work with people longterm. I know about the product, I know about the brands and I’m confident in telling you or saying to you why I like the product, why I picked the product, what I’ve bought from them before, how I got to know them because I’ve got that, that information that I know about the products I know about the brand and that’s the stuff I want to pass on.

So when you are contacting a brand that you’ve spent, you’ve paid attention. It doesn’t always have to be that you bought a product, especially if it’s a new company, but it might be that you have gotten a following that aligns with them and you’ve been watching them and you know that their product is for X, Y and Z and you’re really interested in Y about it. And even could you come and chat to them about it. Could you find out more information about it? Could you ask your followers about it? You don’t always have to part with money, especially if it’s a brand new product, a new brand or a brand new product, but show an interest show you have that knowledge there of the brand and product and it will serve you well. You may not, you know, you may not have people going, yes, yes, be my ambassador, but you’re actually just on the right foot and you we’ll be making that step in the right direction and showing someone you’ve actually got an interest in their business, which is step one in how to work with people.

And the last one here is when there is no value to what you have to say, what you have to offer them, which sounds really harsh but hear me out here. So imagine if you will that you are a brand and you’re getting loads of people approach you each day. The emails, the messages are either similarly weak or similarly strong. But when you click through onto their, let’s say Instagram, in this case you realise that they actually got a really small following but also they don’t post regularly and their engagement’s rubbish and their pictures are pretty weak and they’ve got a list of sponsors as their bio. Where’s value in that for a brand? You know, you look at their captions, there’s nothing there. Where is the value in that for a brand?

And I know that sounds really harsh, but you have to kind of step away from what you’re doing and look at yourself from that point of view. If you, if your value that you offer the brand and potentially is really, really low, think about what you can do to make your value greater, not just for you but as a personal brand. If you have got a weak social media, um, weak social media platforms, that’s not helping you as a brand either. But it definitely, it doesn’t make you investible if you are never, if you’re not posting, if you’re posting like once a month, you know, really sporadically weak images, rubbish captions, no engagement, you know, that is not good. It’s not good for the brand, but it’s not good for you either. And that’s important. These things aren’t saying, I’m not kind of saying with this one particularly, I’ll make yourself something you’re not.

I’m saying if you want to be taken seriously on social media, you’ve got to show up and be consistent. If you don’t, that’s absolutely fine too. I’m not here to tell you you’ve got to take social media seriously as i do, which would be weird cause I kind of do it for a job, but I’m not telling you you’ve got to take it seriously as I do. What I am saying is if you are approaching brands and saying that you can help them and you are going to help them via your social media, you do need to take that seriously because you are pitching somebody and you are taking their money in one way or another. And if you are doing that, you need to make sure you can deliver. You need to be confident in what you’re doing and that you are going to do the best you can for them because these are people at the end of the day, even if it’s a big company, there are people that work for that company.

There are people that you know go over and above blood, sweat and tears, all of that. And if you are approaching them and you’re really offering them a really, really weak thing, it’s a real person. You may want a free bridle, let’s say, but that money that that cost, someone’s had to soak that up. You know the person who’s made said bridle has had to be paid, the postage has had to be paid, the marketing, everything else. There’s so much connected to each product that is sold and you taking that it’s a responsibility, it’s your responsibility to do a good job and it’s your responsibility when you pitch to somebody to make sure you’re in a position where you can realistically deliver on that. And again, I’m not saying you need to have 20,000 followers, I’m not saying you have to post 18 times a day.

What I’m saying is you need to make sure you have a value there, a value there that the brands can see that your followers can see. And if you haven’t got that, go look at your social media strategy and think, actually is this something that I want to do as a brand ambassador or do I just want to do it for my own enjoyment and for fun? Is it something I want to do to build a personal brand or is it something I just want to do as in when? And I don’t really, you know, have that much, um, concern about the, the longterm, the personal brand. And I’m not saying either of those options is wrong, but I am saying if you are that person, you are probably not or possibly not the right person to then pitch. You’re going to do this really comprehensive campaign on social for a brand.

So there are my five ways not to approach a brand if you want to be an ambassador or sponsored rider. So using the wrong name, the question marks, putting in what you want first, no knowledge of the product and no value to offer. Sounds harsh. All true. If you would like to further your knowledge on how to work with brands and if you want to give your social media a real supercharge, then I have a new course called social supercharge: riders, which is available. It’s a digital course, it’s online, you can study whenever you like. There’s a Facebook group and an absolutely killer discount page too from some of my favourite brands, you can get really, really significant discounts from. Um, so that is, that’s a really good option if you’re looking to increase your, you know, improve your social media to attract, whether it’s brand ambassadors, sponsorships, whatever you want, even owners.

It’s a really good course. So if you’re interested in that, there’ll be a link in the show notes, but also if you go to my website and look at work with me at social supercharge riders, it is there or feel free to DM me and I’ll send you over the link for more information. It’s at Rhea Freeman PR is my, um, Instagram DM and also I can send you a link and there is a free video preview there. So that’s quite useful if you are interested in finding out a little bit more information. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope it’s helped. Don’t forget, take a screenshot, share on stories and tag me. I love to see where you’re listening, when you’re listening. Um, and I have really enjoyed this episode. I hope you have to. Thank you