9 months ago, I was in debt with -$300 to my name. Nothing. And this past month, I officially hit my first ever $20k month with UGC. I got questions from other newer creators who are just starting in a similar position, so I wanted to make a post on exactly what I did The first thing I want to address is it wasn't "sunshine and rainbows." It wasn't this glamorous $0 to $20k/m get rich quick path you see all over social media. It took 9 months of trial and error, impostor syndrome, and lonely nights filled with doubt and thoughts of quitting. for me, this meant filming after bedtime when the house finally went quiet, running on countless sleepless nights, then dragging myself to my 9-5 the next morning. It meant editing on my lunch break and missing bath time and bedtime stories more nights than I want to admit, all to chase something I wasn't even sure would work. But I believe in sharing this fully, because for years I was in a scammy industry doing digital marketing, MRR, and selling courses, making affiliate commissions on products I didn't even believe in. The whole space was dishonest. I still remember crying myself to sleep thinking, "all these other moms are making $10k/m, what in the world am I doing wrong?" i quit in 2024 with nothing to show for it but hundreds of wasted hours and $10k+ in courses. And going all in on UGC was the best decision I've ever made. For the first time I wasn't selling anyone anything or guilting another mom into a course. I was making content around products I actually liked and getting paid for it. The work stopped feeling like work. So let me get tactical. If I could go back, this is the advice I'd give myself. First, your income follows what you believe you're worth. For years I thought the six-figure life was reserved for doctors, lawyers, and people "smarter" than me. I made zero progress until I saw real proof from other creators, moms, and even teenagers doing it. “If they can do it, why can’t I right?” Second, stop selling your time. I'd never take a gifted collab or a flat $50-200 video again. When I was doing 30 of those a month for $3-5k, that's exactly when I was burnt out, because I was capped no matter how hard I worked. Now I only take deals where there is a massive upside for me, my favorite is CPM, paid on performance, bonuses per 1,000 views.

Hi, I’m Missy! I started my UGC journey in November 2024. For months I was figuring things out on my own — pitching daily, taking on any project I could, and learning through a lot of trial and error. In July, I thought things were finally starting to take off when I landed my second monthly retainer for $600. I was creating daily videos and felt like I was building real momentum… until, just 6 days in, the brand suddenly dropped me. My last video for them had even hit 60K views, so I felt crushed. I couldn’t stop asking myself, was my content not good enough? I won’t lie, I thought about quitting. But something in me said, no — keep showing up. So I kept pitching every single day, even when it felt pointless, and I kept creating for the clients still counting on me. Two weeks later, on 8/17, I accepted my first $1k/month retainer. Just a few days after that, on 8/22, an agency followed up on a past application and offered me a $1,250/month retainer, with $623.87 paid upfront. That rejection ended up being redirection. Losing one brand opened the door to two better ones, and it gave me the confidence to trust my value as a creator. 👉 Don’t stop pitching. Every no just makes space for a better yes. The right brands will find you if you keep showing up. And now, I’m even more excited because I just got off a call with Gloria. She’s already helping me see how to upgrade my systems and scale my income beyond one-off wins. I can’t wait to keep learning and growing inside UGC World.

This is one of my first ever students @Maya Herring and here's what we worked on throughout the last few weeks in order to land this $6k brand deal. The first point is to never underestimate your content. Some of the best performing pieces of content can happen when you least expect it. Perpetuity usage is a no brainer to most brands (if the content performs of course) and one of the easiest ways to make more from your overall brand deal. There was a major implementation of direct response conversion driven frameworks that was used in the actual UGC video itself. read these two posts if you want to learn more about that: https://www.skool.com/ugc-world/only-the-top-1-of-ugc-creators-know-about-this-book https://www.skool.com/ugc-world/brand-results-update If you understand how to create content that converts, you'll always have opportunities. The second tip was focusing on our backend systems. The money is made in the backend. It’s one thing to learn how to sign new brands, but it’s one thing to turn one off gigs -> huge packages like Maya. There's a strategic framework to land monthly recurring retainers and sign repeat brands as your customers. $150 brand deal -> $6k is not uncommon when you have the right strategies in place Goes to show how important the follow up is and proper relationship/trust building with these brand owners. Also, this $6k is just for PERPETUITY, meaning Maya’s getting paid $6k for literally doing nothing, work that she’s already done 90 days ago Which means that we have a HUGE opportunity here to explore why that video worked so well, and replicate the same video, offering different angles, hooks, concepts, and creatives for the brand to test. Realistically, we’re going to use this opportunity and help Maya turn it into another 4 figure monthly recurring retainer, which will be 5figures+ from a single brand relationship.

ATTENTION UGC CREATORS: HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT. This literally might change your UGC career. Q4 is coming (last 3 months of the year, oct, nov, dec) and that's where brands will spend a HUGE majority of their marketing budgets. This period is when consumers spend the most amount of money, so brands make the most amount of money. This period is when brands spend the most amount of money, meaning . . UGC creators MAKE the most amount of money. a lot of you will see a HUGE spike in brand deals, opportunities, and increase in your UGC income for the rest of the year because brands are actively looking to spend. you'll see more job posts, you'll receive more inbounds, there will be abundance. HOWEVER, if you are not actively using this opportunity and taking it into your own hands, you are missing out on THOUSANDS of $$$$. so, you're asking "Gloria, how exactly do I take advantage?" well, there's plenty of ways I did it last year in 2024, the way I posted certain content, my positioning on my portfolio, but here's one hack that you can use so that you're able to take action after reading this post and get a first quick win. Copy this outreach angle I used last year that literally has signed me 100+ brand deals from q3-q4 and has landed me multiple tens of thousands in paid collabs. Pitch #1: Direct approach Opening: "Quick question: How many pieces of content do you have ready for Black Friday?" "Most brands tell me 5-10. But here's the problem - Black Friday weekend alone needs 15-20 pieces of content if you want to maximize sales." "Black Friday emails, Cyber Monday ads, weekend social posts, website banners, follow-up campaigns... it adds up fast." "I can create your entire Black Friday content package in 2 weeks. Want to see what that looks like?" Why It Works: Super direct, focuses on one specific event, easy math to understand Pitch #2 "THE COMPETITOR COMPARISON" Opening: "I just counted your competitor [Name]'s holiday posts from last year. They posted 47 pieces of content between November-December."