How This Fitness Coach Made $15K in His Fourth Month of UGC | Kason Grainger E8

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the UGC Industry Podcast, the show that brings creators, brands, and everyone building the UGC space into one conversation. I'm Brandon Heen, your host, and every week I sit down with the people shaping this industry, from the creators landing brand deals to the founders and agencies behind them. Let's get into it. On this episode, we have Kasen Granger. Kasen's only been doing UGC for six months and has already had a 15K month with one brand on tribe. So, Kasen, you had been doing fitness coaching full-time for two years before you got into UGC. What made you want to make the transition?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I'm sure plenty of you guys have already heard. Don't turn your favorite passion into your job. I know plenty of bodybuilders that do fitness coaching that would probably disagree with that, but for myself, it simply just was not going to keep working out. It was one of those things where I lost my passion over time for working out, and I still was going to the gym and I built my platform off of being a fitness influencer, and I still want to post about fitness while incorporating UGC as well. But doing fitness coaching alongside my own personal journey of fitness and bodybuilding, it just made me lose passion for it. It really did. And it was a slow process over time, and that's what led me to UGC. I'd already done a couple one-off brand deals in the past, but nothing super going all in. Had you been doing social media before? Yeah, I did content ever since back since 2021, but didn't have my first actual success until 2022. Then started working with some brands where I would just have my own discount code, would make commission through there, just classic influencer affiliate code marketing. That's how I made most of my money for the longest time. The sort of fitness coaching and would do the fitness coaching on top of the affiliate codes. I done a few brand deals that were just kind of one-off ones where, for example, this red light therapy company sent me a package and I thought the benefits were cool. So I was like, you know what? Let me reach out to them, see if I can get some free packaging. They sent me a package, asked for I think three videos, and that was my first experience doing UGC, but it wasn't really anything valuable. It wasn't any sort of commission percentage or ad spin percentage after the fact. It was just 200 bucks for three videos for a free package of products that I actually wanted. So that was my first time doing an actual UGC collaboration, but that was well over a year ago. Did you think you'd ever be doing content full time? In terms of content creation as a whole, it actually was my dream ever since like 2018 in terms of like posting online and having a platform and building something from it. But it's definitely changed a lot over the course of the last like eight years. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

So how did you discover UGC then?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Well, I already knew about it just from seeing the occasional posts about it. Owen, the owner of Content Economy, which we're both coaches at, was posting about it a good bit with his deals with Whoop and learning about how much it's growing over time and realizing as well that even as an influencer with 248,000 followers, that's not gonna guarantee you a bunch of brand deals the way that it used to, maybe five or 10 years ago. Brands nowadays are not gonna be spending a thousand plus dollars on one video or way more than that for one video just because it's not worth it for them anymore. They can get a group of, you know, 10 plus creators that are making plenty of videos for them for free in exchange for products.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah, I'm sure you see this a lot in the fitness space where people have a ton of followers and are making almost no money. Literally, I've had two people who have over a million followers who are curious about getting into UGC for making more income because followers just don't really equal income anymore in many cases.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

It's a big misconception, and I feel like people almost always automatically assume that if you have over 100,000 followers, you're making plenty of money out of thin air and coming from someone that has 248,000 followers. It's not like that at all. Like you have to constantly be adaptable, figure out what you're gonna go when it comes to your niche, what you want to promote, what you want to be known for, what your passion is, and most importantly, stay adaptable.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I actually didn't even know you had 240,000 followers, and that's awesome. How did how did that grow?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Originally, it grew just from me posting kind of goofy videos. I'm sure people that are watching this already know. I did like awkward Jimbo videos where I would go on Omega and I'll just like talk to women and just be like painfully awkward, be like, Oh my gosh. So do you like my muscles? And that got like probably combined with all those videos across all platforms, probably well over 200 million views. And what year was this? 2022 and 2023.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

A different era of social media back then for sure. Absolutely. And I would also mix in my personal base content when it comes to like my passions, my personal journeys when it comes to small niche things. Like I did a whole journey documenting my neck progress when it comes to building up my neck because I used to have a really skinny neck. Documented that on TikTok. Also posted about my first bodybuilding journey that was a 16-week bodybuilding prep. But I'll do that stuff alongside the Omega videos, which would always reliably go viral. Yeah. And then as a result, build my following through that and just kind of find my way as more time went on.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

So you have 250,000 followers and you were doing brand deals for $200 a video.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

For products that I liked, yeah. There's no answer to that because I've had many brands reach out like that are focused on degeneracy and personally to creators that do this. I personally am not going to promote gambling or lustful behaviors through apps and stuff like that. So even though those pay a lot more, I don't feel comfortable promoting that to begin with. Yeah. There's some products like uh there's an app that reached out to me recently that was gonna pay upwards of two grand base salary plus CPM. So payment per thousand views, yeah, essentially. And even that still wasn't worth it because I just didn't fully align with it. Yeah. With the red light therapy stuff, it was like huh, 200 extra bucks on top of free products for three videos. That's easy.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah, and what's so cool about UGC is that you don't have to post anything on your own account. So obviously, neither of us want to, you know, promote bad stuff, but for UGC, it doesn't necessarily have to be something like you're actually using because it's it's you know not on your account. And you can get $200 deals with no followers, which is pretty crazy. Okay, so you've been following Owen. What made you actually want to make take the leap into doing UGC?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Well, like I told you before with the fitness coaching, I just lost passion with it. And I reached out to him and I was like, hey man, I know that you do UGC and that you're a owner in content economy and that you're very familiar with the space. I'm wanting to branch out from fitness coaching transparently. He was like, All right, let's hop on a call and walked me through how I can go about joining the company that I'm with now and getting started on Tribe. And that was the start of it all for me. And once again, I was already a creator with 248,000 followers, and I still was terrible at making UTC videos because it is not the same as recording like this or recording just a random talking head shit post video. How does it differ? When it comes to the paid ad videos and videos for tribe, you want to follow formats that are based off of winning videos more than just putting up the camera and just spitballing random information. You want to follow a format such as hook, problem solution, call to action, or um Colin Reich talks about this a lot, like hook, primer, super hook, when it comes to something that's gonna stop someone from scrolling, grab their attention, call out a pain point of theirs, and then bring them a solution and call out a very niche specific audience because with these ads, the algorithms work tremendously well. So if you call out a specific audience, that audience is gonna see your video if it gets ad spin behind it.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah, and so that's some serious sauce, right? They're calling out a specific person in your hook. So an example of this would be hey, if you're a guy between the age of 20 to 25 and you want to look better at the gym, or hey, if you're a mom between the ages of 30 and 45 and you're struggling with bloating, you see how I'm like calling out a very specific person. It's so much stronger of a hook than just saying, if you're tired by midday. Yeah, you know, that's anybody. Um, yeah, exactly. That could be anybody, you know. If you're an office worker who's exhausted by midday and missing your deadlines at work, it's a lot more specific. Okay, so you get onto tribe. Tribe is commission-based UGC, so you're only getting paid when you make videos that get sales. So your first day into this, you've never made ads before. What's your process for making your very first videos?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Well, more importantly, I would say, you know, besides the scripting, besides the winning formats, besides the lighting, those are all the basic things. Most important part is just getting in front of the camera and doing the damn thing, just putting in the reps. I myself still struggle with that to this day when it comes to doing the damn thing of putting the camera in front of my face and pressing record because that's the part that we all struggle with, and that's the most important part when it comes to getting in more reps. Yeah. And with that, you need to understand how your videos need to flow and implementing certain things that I wasn't really implementing beforehand, such as visual hooks. I never thought to make my first three to five seconds very visually stimulating for my other content because I just never really needed it, if I'm being honest. Yeah. So what do you do with that? So, what are some examples of visual hooks in a UGC ad? So, for example, if the camera is right here, you would literally just start it off by pulling your hand off like that. That way they see your hand coming off like this, and then from there you can talk immediately. Another one would be showing if you're doing clothing, like for shirts, you would show a shirt that fits your arms really bad. If you go to the gym, you say, if there's someone between 18 and 25 that goes to the gym, like myself, and you're wearing shirts like this, you've got to stop and then swap to the good fitting shirt and the exact same spot. That way the visual change looks aesthetic, and you can see the direct before and after in the same exact spot. That way it looks seamless, smooth, grabs their attention, and looks clean. So, how did you choose the first brand that you wanted to work with on Tribe? Well, with Haas, it was a no-brainer because I got a connection which led me to them in the first place, and they were already crushing it. I already liked the products, so that was a no-brainer for me. But for the average person, I would say apply to as many brands as possible if you're very, very new. And then over time you get more picky. I would say in the beginning, if you're completely brand new, the last thing you should do is be picky. I was only picky because I had other streams of income at the time, yeah. Fitness coaching with other affiliate code revenue, and I wasn't relying just on UGC and just on Tribe to make money. I would say for the average person, don't be picky at all in the beginning until you start seeing success, and then from there, niche down to one to four good brands. But until then, don't be picky at all.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, and if you guys didn't know, Haas is an activeware brand with a huge UGC program. The owner of Haas also owns Tribe, so they're very ingrained together. Um, they have really, really good training formats and structures for their UGC creator, which explains why Caseon has been able to grow so rapidly. So, what's it been like working with their team?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

It's been nothing but good. I mean, they host weekly calls every single week to go over winning formats. I believe there's actually three calls spread across three people throughout the entire week, every single week that you can find on their Discord, and then one weekly call for Tribe. And in every single call, we go over winning formats, the best videos of the week, what products to focus on. And I would say being a part of a brand that has that community feel is so important. I'm the creative manager for Made by Throne, which is a peptide-based skincare company. We've got 25 creators, and we're doing the exact same thing when it comes to explaining winning formats. Other brands that have similar products that are already crushing it and doing multiple hundred thousand dollar months. And I'm on the call reviewing their videos, giving them inspiration, and chatting with them in the meantime throughout the rest of the week. There's plenty of brands on Tribe, which I'm sure you've seen for yourself that don't respond at all and they have no sort of community feeling at all. And that's not a brand that you necessarily want to be a part of long term because they're not going to be a brand that focuses a ton on their creators.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah. So when you when you guys are choosing what companies to work with, whether it be on Tribe or organic UGC, I highly, highly recommend you find brands where the company is bought in. What does this look like? They're adding you to group chats, whether that be Discord or WhatsApp, they have trainings for you, right? You you can go get training from third-party coaching groups and stuff like that, which is very beneficial. But you also want to be getting coaching from the brands specifically that you're working with, because they're going to know their company and their angles better than anyone else. And if you're a brand listening to this, the space is wide open for this because a lot of companies are not doing this. A lot of companies are literally just unleashing UGC creators to make videos for their products and not even barely telling them about hooks, angles, anything about the product. And so you've only been doing UGC for six months, but you've already advanced from a creator to a creator manager. What does that role look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

For one, I'm on Tribe every day to approve, deny, or request revisions for submissions. What would make you deny someone's video on Tribe? If they set their camera up right here and start the video off saying, Hey guys, got this new product in from this company, and uh it's really good because it's got this, this, and this. And yeah, the links down below. That's instant, instant deny because there's no visual hook, there's no sort of compelling hook, there's no target audience, there's no explanation of the product. Our products for the peptide-based skincare can be a bit complex when it comes to trying to explain the ingredients. We don't ask that you give them the full scientific breakdown, but you should be able to explain hey, most brands use this. We use this because this is what's used in the commonly backed studies for this product. Small things like that go a long way. And if you're a creator that's not doing any of that in your video, instead denied.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

So, as a creator manager who is running a program on Tribe, how do you guys go about selecting the creators that you want on your campaign?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

We are very picky, especially in the beginning. And I think all brands should be picky. I think if you're a brand that has 900 plus creators, that's already a red flag. We look less at GMV and look more at the total commitment. For example, I have my old roommate that's on Made by Throne, and he is brand new to UGC, hasn't made a single sale off of Tribe yet, but he's making 15 videos every single week and he's fully committed. Same thing with a few of the other creators that are relatively new to UGC, but their videos are good and we're coaching them every single week and they're bought in. We want to focus on creators that are bought into Throne the same way that we're bought into them. Because it goes both ways. We're bought into the creators, we're focusing on them, and we want to only make sure that they're making more money as more time goes on. But in return, we only want creators that are gonna take us seriously. We're not gonna go all in with a creator program if we have a hundred plus creators that are making two videos a week.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah, so this brings up a good point, and it's something that a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that UGC is a very connection heavy game. Knowing the right people and having someone vouch for you in order to get on a brand is actually a lot bigger of a deal than people think. That's why it's so important to connect with agencies, connect with the right people. Um let's assume someone doesn't have a personal connection to you guys and someone's just applying to you on Tribe. How are you going to evaluate those applications and whether you want to let them into your program?

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Really good question. I was actually gonna make a video series about this on my Instagram and TikTok because very good question. I would say right off the bat, if your profile does not have a profile picture, that's automatically a red flag. And you would be surprised at how many people don't have a profile picture on their profile. That's that's the most simple as it possibly gets. Besides that, if you don't have any sort of portfolio videos on your profile account, once again, why would I ever accept you? Then lastly, with every single application that you send in for a brand, you're able to add a preview message where you just say something like, Hey, just wanted to reach out and say that I would love to make products for your brand. Love what you're doing and would love to make content for your brand. Take some sort of inspiration from that message and send that to every single brand that you want to work with. Never, ever, ever apply to a brand with no message at all, and especially no preview video. If you want your highest chance of being accepted, buy the product first from the brand, make a preview video with that brand product, and then from there add a message along with a preview. That's gonna make you stand out so much more. And even if you don't want to buy the product, at least add a preview video of some sort. That way they see that you're able to make content that looks good and also see your preview message where you say, Hey, I would love to make content for your brand.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, guys, this is so simple. Whenever I see people talking about I can't get accepted on brands by tribe, I'm like, How? Have a profile picture, have sample videos. When you go to apply, send a custom message, and then even if you don't have that company's product, send a product of a similar niche. So if it's for a hair product, just make a video with another hair product.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

The bar is really low, guys. It sounds simple, but that's that's the whole point. It's very simple. And I had a client recently who, once again, brand new to UGC. And for all of you that are like, oh, I don't know how to what's what what products to use to make videos for. He's in Argentina right now. He's backpacking across Argentina, found random products, used a vitamin C supplement that he's using, electrolytes, and a couple others. And he made his five portfolio videos. And guess what? He's working with five brands already on Tribe. Three of them are product based. I'll have to wait until he's back in the States to use them, and then two of them are software apps.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

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SPEAKER_00 18:50

It's way easier to make more money from doing that to then just pay for the hotel yourself.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

All right, so let's rewind again to you getting started with Haas. How long was it before you got your first sale on Tribe?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Dude, it took me over a hundred videos before I got my first sale.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Over a hundred videos.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

What were you thinking during that time?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

I'm not gonna lie, I was like, this is taking way too long, and I was wondering why the delay was so freaking long. But I was told by everybody on the Haas team, like, bro, literally just don't stop. And multiple guys in the chat for Haas were saying things around the lines of man it didn't click for me until I hit 600 submissions. Oh my god. One guy recently, his name's Mario, was like, things didn't click for me until I hit 800 submissions. And I'm currently at 530, and my goal is to get to a thousand, ideally before the end of the year. So it does take time. And I want to preface, it's not gonna take most of you 100 plus videos to get your first sale. With Haas, they can take a bit longer to run your ads. With most brands, it just depends. It's never gonna be a black and white answer. My girlfriend, who has made less than 20 videos, has already made two sales. So she, once again, had no UGC experience prior to me helping her out with it. And yes, she got the brand connection from me reaching out to them. That's just where connections help to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

But my point is, she's made less than 20 videos and has made 30 bucks in commission. So it is absolutely possible. And that's also without partnership ads being enabled. Once those get enabled, it'll be even more for her.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

So yeah, and this is what's so great about try and and UGC in general. If you have grit and you can stick with something, there's no competition. My first hundred ads that I made, I made maybe like 3k, which you can say, oh, $30 for a video, that's pretty bad, which yeah, it is. So now in my last 300 videos, I'm at $27,000, and I'm continuing to get about two to $300 worth of passive income every day. So if you can just stick through that initial hurdle, the rewards on the other side are so great. So you started to get your first sales, then how did it go?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

It's pretty much been a snowball effect after that. I mean, it's been only up, it's been occasionally a slow week here and there, but with quarter four coming up, it's only gonna keep improving more and more. And I would say if you're watching this right now and you're contemplating getting started, right now is the best time to get started. You'll likely make more money your first two to three months of starting right now because of it being quarter four compared to what you'll make then in Q1 and Q2, at least potentially, not guaranteed, but yeah, and and what's special about quarter four is that we have Black Friday and Christmas coming up.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

So these are huge times of the year for e-commerce companies. This this video is gonna go live probably first week of October. Y'all go sign up, go sign up for Tribe today, go start doing some UGC, get your chops in there. Now, I know your highest month is 15K, which for a lot of people is crazy. Like that that's enough to not even need a job anymore. What month did you hit the 15k in? It was August. So that was your four months in. That's with one product. And you're also still doing fitness coaching. So how are you balancing? Doing UGC with fitness coaching?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Well, transparently, as soon as I started doing more of the UGC stuff, especially after I realized that I had been losing passion for the fitness coaching, I started to dwindle down. I had upwards of 30 plus clients at one point while doing the UGC. That was just way too stressful, way too much work. I'm now down to only six clients. So it's much more manageable and it's honestly still work, but it's way less work compared to whenever it was 30 plus. And I was also trying to maximize UGC videos every single day. So entirely different. And I would say back then I felt more like a chicken running around with its head cut off because I just had so much crap I was trying to do and wanted to make sure I was getting back to everybody. But now it feels really good to be focusing mostly on UGC clients and content economy clients and doing all the marketing work and keeping my personal journey with working out entirely separate.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So yeah, that's awesome. So Owen obviously invited you to be a coach in content economy. What's really neat about content economy is that basically all the coaches are students who have had success. So we we've all walked the walk in the group and are now able to give back and teach others basically what we did. So now that you've been coaching students in content economy, what are you what do you see as some characteristics of the people who really come and succeed and kill it versus not so much?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

I would say the number one thing that separates someone that sees fast success versus not seeing fast success is honestly being borderline obsessive. Like you gotta be obsessed. Um that might sound like a turnoff for a lot of you, and if it is, you probably shouldn't do UGC because you you want to be on the borderline of being unhealthily obsessed with UGC formats, hooks, understanding how to sell products, understanding scroll stoppers when it comes to visual hooks on camera, and more importantly, putting in the reps, being obsessive with putting in more reps every single day. If you don't have that kind of mentality, if you're someone that's gonna give up after a month if you don't make any money, don't get involved.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yeah, and and you want to be the person who's just open to learning that because you can go from a complete beginner to 15k a month, 18k a month is what we both did in our fourth month. What I notice in content economy is that you don't even see the people that aren't succeeding, because the only people who don't succeed are genuinely the people who just don't show up. Literally everybody who comes onto calls and takes the training has rapid success with UGC, even if they have no content creation experience beforehand.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

And with those calls too, even if they're not learning a ton directly from the coach themselves on the call, the people that are in the calls that are also seeing success are able to help them out. So plenty of times we'll have calls and we'll maybe have five to ten people in the calls, sometimes more, sometimes less. Usually there's one to two newer guys. Like today, Lucas was on my call. He's a client that you got. Yeah. And he was telling me how he's just started and was sending me his videos. His videos are already pretty solid. Yeah. He's already putting in the work, which is what matters most compared to dilly-dallying and purchasing content economy and then not doing anything for three plus months.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Exactly. Yeah. Um, I I gotta give a shout out to Lucas. So I signed him up a couple weeks ago. The next day, he sent me a screenshot and he'd already applied to 500 jobs. There are people who, for some reason, just go weeks stuck in their head. And the other thing about groups like Content Economy is that the real goal of the group is to get people in so that we can put them on the brand deals for brands that come to us. Because right now in the UGC space, there are so many more brands that need good creators than there are creators. So we need people who are gonna come in that we can then place on those deals.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

For every one brand, they're gonna want at least 50 good creators. Do the math there. If it's 10 brands, it's gonna be at least 500 creators total that they need. Brands don't take it seriously enough and they don't lean into their creators enough. And number two, plenty of creators just are lazy or they don't put in the work that they should, and they're not as obsessed as they should be for the opportunity that they have, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

So now let's say you're coaching somebody on how to create a high converting ad. What are you gonna tell them?

SPEAKER_00 26:15

I would say lean into your strengths when it comes to what you can naturally promote the best, as well as the audience you can promote best too. I'm sure we both agree we're not gonna sell as well to a 65-year-old woman compared to a 65-year-old woman. I got my dad some of this peptide-based skincare stuff, and I know for a fact he'll be able to use the anti-aging marketing angle that actually is true for topical GHVCU way better than myself, even though it is an actual benefit of topical G HPCU. I'm gonna sell that way less compared to my dad.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

So 100%. People ask, Am I too old to get into UGC? I'm this type of person, I'm that type of person. Can I do UGC? Yes. There is literally a product for everything. I joke on Instagram a lot and say you have to be attractive, but really average people feel more comfortable when they see average or below average people making videos, right? Um, if you're in your 50s, there's a ton of products that skew towards people of that demographic that that are gonna so and the thing is if you're in your 40s or 50s, you have even less competition. Everybody who's 21 wants to be a YouTuber and a TikToker, everyone knows how to use technology so much better at that age. Now, obviously, yes, there's a lot of opportunities for people that age because of all the software apps that are being marketed towards Gen Z, but that's the coolest thing about UGC. It's literally for everyone. And so your dad's doing UGC now?

SPEAKER_00 27:45

For Throne, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

How is that going?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

It's going good. He literally just started, so he hasn't even gotten me a video yet. He's recorded some of them and he's gonna get them edited. But I was telling him, I was like, look, you already like the products because he likes copper a lot and he wanted to use the topical form because he didn't like pinning it every single day, because pinning it results in a lot of post-injection pain with copper specifically. So he wanted to use it topically, and I was like, look, just get footage of you putting it on and use it for a couple weeks, make sure you actually like the products. And if you like them, talk about them. He's already been in sales for 40 years, so he's gonna need to learn a few things when it comes to visual hooks and not being boring on camera. I'm gonna tell him, lean into your strengths. You're a 65-year-old man, so lean into the anti-aging route, lean into being older, lean into your face having wrinkles. That's all gonna be way more applicable for him compared to me. So, how do you not be boring on camera? I would say um, for one, once again, like I gave the example earlier, don't just set the phone up and then say, Hey guys, I got this product here, blah, blah, blah. Like no one cares. For one, you have to have a visual hook of some sort, whether it's text on screen, whether it's you doing a green screen format, whether it's like setting a phone down and then stepping back, whatever it may be. You want to be entertaining in some way in regards to that. And I would also say, don't speak with an overly salesy voice. That can potentially make you think you're being more entertaining, but no one's gonna listen if you're like, you have gotta buy this shirt because it needs exact. Yeah, like no one wants to hear that. They're gonna immediately be like, ad, don't care. Yep. You want to find ways to be relatable and authentic while promoting the product while not sounding like a car salesman.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

So yeah, so you made two really good points there on good tactics that you want to use in an ad. One is a text hook. So a text hook is the few words that are on the screen. And I I always say this is almost the most important thing because you can read the text hook before you can hear the spoken hook. So this is gonna be something that generates curiosity. So it could be guys who work out a lot need this, dot dot dot. If you're over 50 and want to get rid of wrinkles, try this. Dot dot dot. It's making people want to watch the rest of the video so that they can continue watching. And the more people that make it past the first three to five seconds of your video, the more these platforms are gonna push it out. So you really want to captivate people for those first few seconds. And the other thing is you said, don't sound like a salesperson. I want you guys, if you've never done UGC, go make a video right now and you're gonna cringe at how you sound on camera because you have that camera voice. So what you should do instead is talk like you're talking to a friend on FaceTime. You want it to sound normal and natural. Remember, UGC, user-generated content. It's supposed to feel like a normal person, not like an ad. So those are two great pieces of advice.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

There's plenty of examples too. I guarantee every single person that's watching this video has scrolled on at least a few videos today or the day before that are actual UGC ads and they just didn't realize it because guess what? They did a really good job of just talking like you're a friend. Yep. That means they're good if you don't know they're a UGC ad. There's plenty of them, like Air Club is one that I always see and that is constantly having UGC partners and they crush it because they're just talking about travel content, explaining how you can get cheaper flights, and it's like they're telling a friend, yo, bro, why are you paying a thousand dollars for this flight when you can get the same one for 250 bucks? Mm-hmm. Very easy, but you're talking like you're a friend instead of saying, guys, if you want to get cheaper flights, get on air club. Like entirely different energy.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Okay, so as someone who is able to go full time with UGC in just a few months, what would you say to the person who's currently in a job and maybe worried about time constraints they have or if they're gonna be able to do it with a job? How do you coach those people? Because a lot of people that are in our group do have a job. Most are.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Most importantly is just having proper systems. And what that includes is you have to be adaptable for one. So depending on your job and if you have a family or not, or if you're traveling, all of that matters when it comes to setting up your schedule day to day. I also think it's incredibly important to get an editor early on, even if you're not making money from UGC, it's probably worth it to get an editor, especially if you have a job. And I say especially if you have a job, because if you're already working 40 plus hours a week and you're gonna be doing UGC for an extra 10 to 15 hours a week, that's fine. But then you're gonna be adding an extra five to 10 hours of editing and doing all the small nitpicky changes and actually learning two new skills at once, which is UGC and recording, and then also trying to learn editing. It's not gonna be the smooth process. And it's gonna be much smoother if you can just batch record the entire video, have an editor that you can actually rely on and can get you fast results when it comes to getting the raw footage and turning it into a high-quality video within a day or two. Having that is gonna buy back your time so much and is incredibly valuable. And going back to the systems thing, you can have one product and promote it three different ways with a talking head style video, which is just talking straight to the camera, one where you're using plenty of b-roll footage, which is just plenty of overlay footage of you using the product and doing a voiceover. And then you can also do a text on screen with trending audio style. If it's for tribe, you want to make sure it's a non-copyright sound for meta, of course, but that goes a long way. That's three different formats for one product. And if you're someone that works in 9 to 5, that's the best way to maximize 10, 15, 20 plus videos for one product in a week while not getting burnt out.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Yeah, at the end of the day, it just comes down to how bad you want it. The thing about UGC is that in the beginning, you gotta work a lot of hours for a little pay. And that's what a lot of gurus online won't tell you. They'll say, make $10,000 in your first month. I'm always hyper realistic with people. And I want to say, I always say, in the beginning, it feels like you're working for pennies. But the thing is, is you can get out of that phase so quickly, just in a matter of months. And compared to the real world, where you have to go to a job and wait a year to get a raise, you can literally go from making $2K a month with UGC up to 10K in two to three months. You just gotta make it through that initial four to eight weeks of grinding. And don't say you don't have time. Wake up earlier, go to bed later, spend your weekends, grind for three months to change the course of the rest of your life. And a huge example of this is that this is my sixth month now, and I'm gonna cross $20,000 in cash collected. And this is the least time I've spent on my own UGC work this month because I was traveling for the past 10 days. I still have income coming in from ads. It almost sounds unbelievable at this point that I've been putting in working part-time on UGC and doing over 20K a month. But in my first month, I had a full-time job. So, in total, probably 80 hours a week to only make 2K. You just gotta suffer through that first period.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Would you say that you had to drop any bad habits or go through some sort of self-development type of phase for those first 30 to 60 days? Because I feel like a lot of people kind of do go through a transformation of some sort when it comes to realizing, like, okay, I gotta lock the hell in. Let me stop doing all these bad habits and bad vices, whether it's just staying up too late, whether it's playing video games too much, whether it's watching too much TV, smoking weed, drinking alcohol too much. Everyone's got vices. Yes. And UGC is one of those things where it can be really easy to make excuses as to why you can't succeed. And most of the time it's from those bad vices that you have, or the one bad habit that you know is holding you back, but you're not quite ready to give it up. UGC is gonna bring that right to the front of the table.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

So yeah, and ultimately it depends how bad you want it. It'll make you a better person. Can you stop those habits to go after the life of your dreams? I say it's absolutely worth it. I'm a little different than most UGC creators in a sense that I'd already done successful businesses, so I've had the ability to lock in and work hard for long periods of time. And the reason I think I had fast success was because my definition of hard is a lot different than what new UGC creators' definition of hard is. Many people are young and have no experience in business and really haven't done anything in their life before. And that's why people who come in that have had success in professional careers absolutely kill it. But even if you are brand new to business, don't go into it thinking or expecting it to be easy. Take it serious. This is your first venture in entrepreneurship. It's gonna be hard. Be grateful for the times of going through hard things because you're ultimately gonna be so much of a better person on the other side of it. And if if you can go into it and not get discouraged and quit when things get tough and expect that there's gonna be daily challenges, it's not only gonna make you a lot of money with UGC, but it's gonna help you succeed in any other business venture you have in your life because everybody has to go through those first business challenges. For a lot of people, UGC just ends up being that first one. Very well said. All right. So where do you see the UGC space going in the next few years?

SPEAKER_00 37:04

It's only going to continue to explode. I had the specific stats on my phone, but I think it was some crazy number of 26% of creators were selling UGC to brands in 2025. And now in 2026, it's literally 66%. Wow. Massive increase in just one year. And then vice versa, with brands that are prioritizing UGC. 10 years ago, it was hardly any, if any, at all. It's still a very new space. And in 2025, it was massive. 2026, guess what? Way more massive because of Tribe. Probably the most is jumped in one year span, probably ever, because of Tribe. And it's only going to keep going more and more and more. And I believe by 2031, or no, 2035, so over the next nine to ten years, it's supposed to 10x. And that's being conservative.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

So what would you say to someone who's curious about whether they should get into UGC today?

SPEAKER_00 38:04

I say there is no reason as to why you shouldn't just go all in for three months and see what happens. Because at the very least, by then you've tried it. You'll know how it feels. You'll know how to actually make videos in the first place. It'll be a really good experience. And I'm very confident that if anyone were to go all in for 90 days, they would make much more money than they originally thought and would then be like, okay, I'm convinced to do it more now.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Exactly. The worst position to be in life is when you're kind of trying with something. Oh, I'm kind of trying at UGC. I made a few videos. You're never going to hit the velocity of success. If you can tell yourself in your head, I'm going to go all in no matter what happens to me for 90 days. And if I get to the end of 90 days, I'll quit. I guarantee you won't quit. Because something may happen on day 75. Maybe it happens earlier, but there's genuinely no way that you try your best for 90 days and you don't have mind-boggling success that you never thought was possible for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

And that first sale, when it comes in, it's going to give you a dopamine spike that you have probably never experienced before. My girlfriend, who once again had no experience with UGC, has now had two sales, and one was from yesterday, the other one was from a week ago. And she is now much more locked in and is now doing five videos a day. Surprisingly, out of nowhere, once she made her first couple sales. Before that, she had made 11, 12 videos, and now she has a bunch that she's waiting to get approved, but she's made closer to 30 or 35 total now, with 15 of them waiting on to be approved. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Once you get that first sale, you're just gonna want to keep going. You you you make money outside of a job for the first time. That's something you're never gonna forget, and it is gonna light a hunger in you forever. So just don't quit before that happens. Well, awesome, dude. It was awesome to have you on. Yes, sir. Really glad we got to meet in person. Obviously, we both coach together in content economy. Um, so content economy is the premier UGC mentorship. We have eight coaches in there with daily coaching calls. You get the exact framework on how to get started with UGC. Everyone who's coaching you in there has had massive success in the program themselves. So when you put in the work and you lock in, there's no way you don't succeed.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

A thousand plus members for a reason. That didn't just happen accidentally. It's an opportunity of a lifetime, genuinely. Whether you join Content Economy or not, UGC is not going away. So where can the people find you, Casen? At Case and Granger, K A S O N G R A I N G E R on Instagram, Kasen Granger3 on TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

I'll drop those links down below. As always, thank you for tuning in, and we will see you next time on the UGC Industry Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

See you guys.