In episode 527, Megan chats to Candice Ward about the importance of having multiple income streams and how to pitch brands in an effective and time efficient way. Candice is the Founder of Eat More Cake Dessert Blog, Food Photographer, Educator, and Sales Expert. Candice spent over a decade in corporate sales and translated that experience to help other food content creators monetize and scale their businesses. She has coached hundreds of food content creators in her business course, The Confident Pitch Program. She is passionate about helping other food bloggers reach their full potential! In this episode, you’ll learn about different ways to diversify your revenue streams, including freelancing, affiliate work and coaching, but most importantly how to tap into sponsored work by pitching brands using Candice’s time efficient, strategic pitching method (i.e. the Strategic Pitching Approach). Key points discussed: - Diversify Your Revenue Streams to Reduce Business Risk: Diversifying income sources helps mitigate risk and prevents burnout by ensuring you're not solely reliant on one stream of revenue. - Is Direct Pitching to Brands Effective? Sending targeted pitch emails and following up persistently can yield better results than relying solely on social media for brand collaborations. - Practical Ways to Add Additional Revenue Streams: Explore various avenues such as freelance work, sponsored content, coaching, and digital product creation to diversify your income streams and maximize earning potential. - The SPA (Strategic Pitching Approach) method for targeted and effective brand pitching: Use the Strategic Pitching Approach, focusing on personalized pitch emails and consistent follow-up, to increase the success rate of brand collaborations and revenue generation. - Tailor Pitch Emails to Emphasize the Value Proposition to the Brand: Customize pitch emails to highlight how your content creation can directly benefit the brand's goals, this will increase the likelihood of engagement and collaboration. - Focus on Quality Over Quantity to Maximize Conversion Rates: Prioritizing targeted and personalized pitches to a select number of brands increases the chances of successful collaborations and optimizes time and effort spent on pitching. - The Confident Pitch Program: Candice’s comprehensive marketing plan designed to simplify the brand pitching process for influencers and content creators, offering modules on business planning, pitching formulas, negotiation strategies, and post-sales processes. Connect with Candice Ward Website | Instagram Resources Coaching Services Pitch to Profit Workshop Freebie: List of 10 brands with contacts to pitch Freebie:  6 Strategies to Stand out to Brands