How I Landed A Multi-Year Retainer By Telling a Brand NOT To Sell

Have you ever been told to "find the brand's pain point" or "speak to their audience", and nodded along, but deep down had absolutely no idea what that actually meant?

Here's the thing. Neither do most brands.

In this episode I'm breaking down the one concept that quietly separates creators who get hired once from creators brands are desperate to hold onto. And I'm doing it with two real stories: one from a Zoom call with Cottonelle that stopped every creator in the room cold, and one from a multi-year retainer deal I just signed where I told the brand not to sell anything for three months.

They hesitated. Then they said yes. And here's exactly why.

In this episode:

— The marketing funnel explained in a way that actually sticks (using a relationship analogy, not jargon)

— Top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, what they actually mean and what content lives in each one

— The real Cottonelle campaign story and what happened when I asked one question nobody else in the room asked

— Why "we want brand awareness AND we want people to buy at Costco" is one of the most expensive mistakes a brand can make

— How I used this framework to land a multi-year, high ticket retainer deal, and why telling a brand NOT to sell was the move that closed it

— The one question to ask yourself every single time you get a brief

This is not new information. The marketing funnel has existed for decades. But knowing something exists and being able to articulate it are two completely different skills. And if you can articulate it, you become the creator in the room saying out loud what everybody else is aware of but nobody else can say.

That is not just hireable. That is irreplaceable.

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