![How I Got My First Sponsors [Day 13 30 Days of Podcast Notes]](https://images.beamly.com/fetch/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.rss.com%2Fstreamlined-podcaster%2Fpodcast_cover_20260916_122857_a7aaeae9723ee3f8a0758f9d13809543.jpg?w=365)
My first sponsor landed before episode one even dropped. Someone emailed asking to trade backlinks, I told them I don't do that but I did have a podcast coming — a hundred dollars for a show mention and a spot in the notes. That link from July 2016 still resolves, which makes it possibly the best ROI in podcast sponsorship history. LearnDash came next, then a much bigger deal with Pantheon, and the pitch that worked was simple: brands were paying tens of thousands to sponsor a weekend conference, so six months of a show with links that never expire was an easy comparison. None of it was a proven show. It was a proven network.
Resources & Links
- The first episode, sponsor link still intact — streamlined.fm/001
- Join my newsletter for solo business owners: streamlined.fm/join
- Podcast hosting by RSS.com (affiliate link): rss.com
Disclosure: this episode description was generated with AI.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:07 All right, welcome to episode 13 of 30 days of
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 podcast notes here on the streamlined podcaster.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 A little behind the scenes how the sausage gets
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 made. I wrote out 13, 14 and 15. So I have a
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 whole card. I thought of all 30 episodes before
00:00:19 --> 00:00:25 I started recording even one episode. And I had
00:00:25 --> 00:00:29 this was the original order, why it worked. for
00:00:29 --> 00:00:33 getting my mission and getting sponsored. And
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 then I decided that that had to be in a different
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 order. And so I am doing my best to read this
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 card correctly. Today we're talking about getting
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 sponsored. You probably realize that from the
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 title, but a little how the sausage gets made.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 If you notice me kind of stumbling over which
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 number and which topic we're talking about. I
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 didn't rewrite the card. I just rewrote the numbers.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 So, but today is about getting sponsored. I think
00:00:57 --> 00:01:01 this was one of the things that uh gave me a
00:01:01 --> 00:01:05 lot of credibility in the podcast space through
00:01:05 --> 00:01:11 virtually no uh like I didn't I don't feel like
00:01:11 --> 00:01:16 I earned this in the sense that like like my
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 friend Justin Moore right he's a podcast or he's
00:01:18 --> 00:01:24 a sponsorship coach he has a pedigree for getting
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 sponsors and the psychology behind sponsorships
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 and I don't have any of that What I had was a
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 great network and a good show. And so my first
00:01:32 --> 00:01:36 ever sponsor, this is absolutely true, came before
00:01:36 --> 00:01:41 the first show or the first episode dropped.
00:01:42 --> 00:01:49 Someone reached out to me and they wanted a backlink
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 on my blog. And I said, I don't do backlinks.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:55 I don't trade backlinks, but I do have this podcast
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 coming out. And if you want to give me a hundred
00:01:58 --> 00:02:03 bucks, I will give you a shout out in the show
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 notes and I will mention it on the show. And
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 that could be your backlink. Now, what I didn't
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 realize was that you're. You know, I think I
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 made it clear that it was sponsored, but I did
00:02:14 --> 00:02:18 not have like a no follow or I think sponsor.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 I think the sponsor tag and HTML came later.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:26 But so anyway, so if you go to. streamlined .fm
00:02:26 --> 00:02:33 slash 001 that link still works. And so they're
00:02:33 --> 00:02:37 just getting like the greatest ROI ever. They
00:02:37 --> 00:02:41 paid a hundred bucks. It's still going to the
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 same blog post. I mean, it's been updated obviously
00:02:44 --> 00:02:49 over 10 years, but a hundred bucks. I mean, 10
00:02:49 --> 00:02:54 bucks a year at this point. Um, so like But that
00:02:54 --> 00:02:58 was the first time. And so that was a strong
00:02:58 --> 00:03:02 lesson in Don't Ask, Don't Get. I decided to
00:03:02 --> 00:03:04 shoot my shot. It was kind of glib, to be honest
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 with you. I didn't think he would say yes, and
00:03:07 --> 00:03:11 he said yes. And so that was just kind of like,
00:03:11 --> 00:03:15 all right, don't ask, don't get. And my second
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 sponsor was LearnDash. Shout out to my good friend.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:20 Justin Fairman, who was not my friend at the
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 time, but Rebecca Gill came on and talked about
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 how she built her online course platform, and
00:03:24 --> 00:03:28 she used LearnDash, and she said, hey, you should
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 reach out to them to see if they'll sponsor this
00:03:31 --> 00:03:36 episode. And they surely did. And so it was like
00:03:36 --> 00:03:37 a lot of little sponsorships like that. I decided
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 to reach out to people in my network, and a bunch
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 of people were like, yeah, yeah, sure, we'll
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 duke you 100 bucks to have a... a backlink on
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 your like a forever link i i think i called it
00:03:48 --> 00:03:53 a forever link um and i man still true to that
00:03:53 --> 00:04:00 right i this is this episode came out in july
00:04:00 --> 00:04:06 of 2016 and the link is still there so uh still
00:04:06 --> 00:04:11 very much true to that promise and uh so yeah
00:04:11 --> 00:04:16 so learn dash was still a sponsor And I kind
00:04:16 --> 00:04:21 of did that a little bit until I went to a WordPress
00:04:21 --> 00:04:25 event where I was talking to a, what I thought
00:04:25 --> 00:04:29 was a relatively new hosting company, at least
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 in the WordPress space. They were pretty big
00:04:31 --> 00:04:35 in Drupal. They were called Pantheon and they're
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 still around. I don't know why I'm referring
00:04:37 --> 00:04:43 to them in the past like that, but. I made friends,
00:04:43 --> 00:04:48 still friends, with one of their events people,
00:04:49 --> 00:04:54 Tessa, and we basically did my biggest sponsorship
00:04:54 --> 00:05:00 to date. And so getting sponsors for me was very
00:05:00 --> 00:05:05 much around good relationships and networking,
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 as always. And then the other part of it was
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 the strong value proposition. So what I was doing
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 was I was going to these WordPress events where
00:05:13 --> 00:05:17 I knew these brands, the sponsors, were paying
00:05:17 --> 00:05:23 $20 , $30 , $50 for a weekend between
00:05:23 --> 00:05:27 sponsoring the event and sending people there
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 and the swag and the travel and all that stuff.
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 And I said, hey, for $10 , you can sponsor
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 my podcast for six months and those links will
00:05:36 --> 00:05:40 still work in the show notes forever and ever.
00:05:40 --> 00:05:46 So like, that was the value proposition. It doesn't
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 work that way today. It is different today, but
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 back in like the heady days of brands just discovering
00:05:52 --> 00:05:58 podcasts and figuring out. if it was viable for
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 them, it totally worked. And I think the bigger
00:06:01 --> 00:06:05 value for a lot of those brands was the backlink
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 on my website, right? Was me talking about them
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 on social media. Those are things that like don't
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 super work anymore, especially if you do it the
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 right way where you have to list the link as
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 sponsored or no follow. One of those, right?
00:06:19 --> 00:06:23 I need to brush up. But even today, right, when
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 I send out sponsorship packages, The YouTube
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 bit I think is the most valuable thing for a
00:06:29 --> 00:06:33 lot of folks though That might be changing with
00:06:33 --> 00:06:37 a EO. So You know, this is always a moving target.
00:06:37 --> 00:06:41 It's always evolving but for those first few
00:06:41 --> 00:06:47 sponsorships The the show was not proven as much
00:06:47 --> 00:06:51 as I was proven and I think that's important.
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 It always goes back to networking and the relationships
00:06:54 --> 00:06:58 you build no matter what. So that's it for this
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 episode of 30 Days of Podcast Notes on the Streamline
00:07:01 --> 00:07:05 Podcaster. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did,
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 Check out my other show, too, Streamline Solopreneur.
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 That's more general business. So if you are a
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 solopreneur or a solo business owner and you're
00:07:15 --> 00:07:19 doing everything yourself and you want to stop
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 doing everything yourself, but you don't want
00:07:21 --> 00:07:25 to hire a team, Check out what I'm doing over
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 at the Streamline Solopreneur. You can join my
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 mailing list, too. I talk about what I'm calling
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 solo ops. So this is taking things off your plate
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 without hiring a team, staying solo, operations
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 for solos. And you can join my mailing list over
00:07:38 --> 00:07:42 at streamlined .fm slash join. I know I just
00:07:42 --> 00:07:43 broke the rule there by giving you three different
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 calls to action. So pick your favorite, I guess.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:48 But that's it for this episode of the Streamline
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 Podcaster. Thank you so much for listening. and
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 I will see you tomorrow.