Hi! My name is Athenas Angulo, I’m a lifestyle blogger, Marketer and mom of two. 3 Years ago, I decided to leave my secure full time job to chase my dream life.
Now I get a monthly income doing what I was doing for fun. The best part? I get to work on my own scheduled and from everywhere. In the past 2 years I’ve worked with well known brands like Disney, Amazon, Four Seasons and Mattel.
My heart gets excited every time a new package comes in with gifted products! My family and I have been able to get free vacays, free clothes, free groceries, free everything. I also get to connect with all of this amazing people and businesses.
I started blogging as a hobby, but later on I became interested in influencer marketing. I started working hard to grow my audience on Instagram and trying to learn how to collaborate and work with brands.
I still remember the first time I asked a business to collaborate with me. I was seating in the car, with my then 2 year old toddler in the back screaming, at the parking lot of this local kids boutique. I wanted to ask the owner to do a giveaway with me but I was so scared of rejection!
“What if she makes fun of me”
“What if she tells the other business owners that this wannabe blogger came and ask me to give her something”
“I do not have enough following”
“When I’m ready, brands will reach out to me”
“What if she said yes, and then she get so disappointed with the results?”
I was seating there, feeling not enough, doubting about me and my skills, so I did what I usually do, I told to myself “screw it” and went for it.
I entered to the store, walk around seeing all of the cool stuff and approach the owner. I told her I was a local blogger and that I wanted to do a giveaway with her. I told her she didn’t had to do anything, just share the giveaway on her Instagram, that I myself would buy a $50 giftcard for the winner. She look at me and smile, and responded “That sounds awesome! I will match you and give $50 myself too” and that’s how everything started!
My first paid partnership came right after. I was approach by this well known brand to do a 6 months contract with them. Even tho I had a little bit more than 1k followers on IG, it was my blog who brought them to me. I remembered when I received the email:
“Hi Athena,
I wanted to see if the below might be of interest? It’s something that we’re just now starting to talk about and explore, but I wanted to test the waters.
I represent …. and we are currently looking for brand ambassadors to partner with on a deeper level than one-off reviews/posts and delve into the world of Insta-Takeovers, blog articles and pre-launch product sampling parties.
Our team thinks you would be a great fit to help us build awareness into the rest of 2017. This note is to check your interest/bandwidth and also to get an idea of criteria you may have. If interested, we would love to answer any questions to get you started!”
I was jumping, running all over my house of excitement!! What??? There is a brand that I’m already consumer who wants to WORK WITH ME??
Rates? Like are they going to pay me??? They are going to give me all of this free product and pay me? Wow! I had NO idea how much people charge for this, so I did what everyone does, I went to google.
There was so much information about this with not really standard answer. People usually minus charge when they are in doubt, but me, I’m the contrary. I got my first 4 figures partnership right there.
After that, partnerships started to come to me almost every month, until I decided I wanted to have contracts weekly. I didn’t know how to pitch brands, so the first thing I did was to reach out to another fellow influencer. The same thoughts and fairs that I had when I wanted to get my first giveaway came over. “She is going to think I’m just using her” “She is going to think I’m taking advantage of her” and blablabla but again, I did anyway. I sent her an email and pray.
Couple hours after, she not only gave me few advices, but she even sent me some templates that she used to pitch them! I thank her and starting to put those templates in action, and the rest is history.
I know made my mission to help other women to grow their online presence, and I teach them the easier and fastest path to get there. There is so much free information out there, however, that information is not personalized, and like diets, every business is a world and I know that because I started seeing results when I started investing educating myself.
If online marketing is what you want to do, reach out to me! I would love working with you to achieve those goals, on the meantime:
Here are my top 5 tips of how to work and collaborate with brands
1-Lose the fear! Change that mindset
Let go the fear that is not serving you, it is only stopping you to move to the next level friend. Take action, relax and let the universe do the rest.
2-Connect with them on social media
Follow them, engage with them, comment on their IG stories.
3-When pitch them, focus on how your skills can support them instead of what would you get
We ALL have skills. Even if you don’t have a marketing degree, there is always something from your past experience that you can bring to the table.
4-Have an AWESOME media kit
At he beginning, concentrate and make all the Collabs that you can so you can grow your portfolio. Your media kit is like your resume, and sometimes you will need to do some free work.
5-Have your pitching strategy in ALL of your social media channels with keywords
Have those keywords they are looking for EVERYWHERE in your channels. You never know where would they find you.
And there you have it friends! Hopefully this will give you a push to get your started, if you feel need to go in deep with these subjects and more personalize help, I’ll be taking a couple more clients in the following months! If you want the details of the content of my sessions email me at anguloathenas@gmail.com
XO,
Athenas
