Am I Doing It For the Money? Let's Talk Monetization

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**Michael Zuber** (1:01)
Alrighty, folks, let's talk about it.
Once on Think Media, I outlined 17 different income streams, a couple of those being sponsors or paid, I don't know, posts or whatnot. And we got people in the community asking questions. So as always, I am an open book. So let's see what people have to say. Go ahead.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:21)
Yeah. So I shared a clip from one of our recent videos, you talking about not needing money also, you're not doing this for that reason. And this individual commented on that, and he also shared that video you just mentioned from Think Media.
But he said, this would be easier to believe if he didn't let people pay him to be on his channel. I wish he was a little more transparent about that.

**Michael Zuber** (1:45)
Yeah. So let's see, how do you want to do this? So first and foremost, there are a couple of people that have paid me to be on my channel.
Again, as I've always said, I don't really know what I'm doing, so everything is from the hip.
So first off, nobody ever pays me to be on my channel the first time. I get asked almost daily, hey, can you have so and so and Company B and Company C and all that. I don't want to do that because it's my channel, my audience. I always do the first interview if I want to, to see if I like them. And if we gel, if we click, if I feel like they're not just selling, right? They're, they're answering real questions. They let me go where I want to go. Sometimes people come and they give me a script like, let's walk this. I'm like, that's, you know, that's not who we are. We, I'm just going to go randomly, either you like it or you don't. So again, nobody, nobody can pay to be on my channel once. I refuse to do that. And that allows me to say no to a lot of people, right? Because if I just sold 30 minute blocks, theoretically anybody can get on. So the first thing is nobody gets on for free. If I like what we're doing, if I think it's something I will use, like Convoy Home Loans or Steadily or Velocity Mortgage or Hemlane, yeah, I will certainly talk about them because I use them, or in Hemlane's case, I helped build the product way back in the day with feedback and needs and things of that nature. So I do have some people that are sponsors or whatnot, like Steadily, you'll see it on the Daily Financial News, that little white box, they pay to be there. But it's also because I use them. So I don't see issues with that. There are some people that come on that we click in the beginning and then it just doesn't work out, I don't like it, so it stops.
You know, this particular individual, I think, likes a, I don't know what it's called, shared real estate called, yeah, fractional. Yeah, fractional, he likes, this guy likes a company called Mogul.
Mogul reached out to me, we didn't click, we didn't gel, they continue to reach out to me. Real Bricks reached out to me, kind of in the same space, I like them, I put some money with them, and they were on the show three or four times.
It didn't feel right, so we're there no longer on, as you can obviously see. So, you know, lots of people have opinions. You know, I'm trying to do the right thing. And the last thing I'll say is, the reason I take sponsorships is A, they offer it. But B, I have to allocate time. And basically what I'm looking for is, you know, payment for my slot, because when I schedule an executive, I can't get that time back, like Dana from Hemline. We're 8.3 on Thursday, every Thursday, and I can't schedule anything else there. So again, yeah, I have some sponsors. I've been very clear about that.