How a data analyst became a premium B2B media partner ft. Jess Ramos

Jess Ramos (0:00)

Brand partnerships right now for me are probably 95%.

Francis (0:04)

Wow.

Jess Ramos (0:04)

My hot take is that I'm not super stressed about that revenue distribution. I've positioned myself to be a credible data and AI media person.

Francis (0:13)

Practically, what does that mean? What have you been doing to position yourself as this authority?

Jess Ramos (0:17)

Raising my hand and saying, can I interview somebody? Next thing you know, you're sitting down with the CEO of the company.

Francis (0:22)

Who are you working with and how are you working with them?

Jess Ramos (0:24)

I'm working with a lot of the big tech brands, IBM, Microsoft, OpenAI. I've done over 100 brand collabs over the past couple of years with tech and data brands.

Francis (0:34)

You're bringing in north of 300K per year right now.

Jess Ramos (0:37)

This is why I get paid what I do because very few people have that skill set of being good on camera and making content, but also the technical stuff as well.

Francis (0:45)

In an actual brand deal negotiation process, what are some of your non-negotiables?

Jess Ramos (0:50)

That is such a good question. I'm like, hold on, let me think on this.

Francis (0:55)

So I know you are not comfortable sharing your precise revenue for this year, but I do want to establish the scale and consequence of your business, right? I know you said your revenue doubled when you left corporate and is up again this year. Your final salary was 153,000, which would mean that you're bringing in north of 300K per year right now. Is that correct?

Jess Ramos (1:16)

Yes, north of that. And I do want to preface too by saying that in general, I'm extremely transparent with almost everything. And in the right spaces, like behind closed doors, I will tell people how much I'm making, how much I'm making on certain partnerships, how I'm approaching those packages and stuff, because I do think salary transparency, especially in the creator world where it's the Wild West, is super important. But the reason I don't share is because I don't think that that should be public information. I'm fine sharing it in the spaces where it really matters with other creators. But I think when you start posting it and brands see it and the economy is so bad, I feel like it can come across as very insensitive when the people who are signing our contracts are making like maybe max 100K a month, or sorry, 100K a year.

So I'm not for money. So I do like to be very sensitive to the fact that I do work with people who are in nine to five corporate jobs, and I just don't think it serves well as public information, especially in this economy. So I just want to preface with that. I'm not a gatekeeper.

Francis (2:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there's nothing wrong with gatekeeping either, I would say. But no, I would say that's quite reasonable. And you're also still giving us a, you know, a decent picture of where it's at. Yeah, for sure. Can you list your different revenue streams and the percentage each contributes to the whole? I know there's some brand partnerships, there's core sales.

Is there anything else?

Jess Ramos (2:39)

So I will say that brand partnerships are my primary driver. I also do have courses, some speaking, you know, a few things like YouTube AdSense, platform fees, sub-stack subscriptions. But I would say brand partnerships right now for me are probably 90, 95 percent, which I know is super high.

And my hot take is that I'm not super stressed about that revenue distribution. Obviously, I want to diversify my revenue into more of the other areas. But I think that I've strategically positioned myself to not just be doing regular brand partnerships like one-off random products, I've positioned myself to be a credible data and AI media person.

Francis (3:27)

Yes.

Jess Ramos (3:27)

So I'm not as concerned about the lack of diversification of my revenue for brand partnerships because of my positioning in the companies that I'm working with.

Francis (3:35)

Yeah. I will say too, usually when I speak to people who have multiple revenue streams, brand partnerships are the majority. Ninety-five percent is a pretty high majority. I would say like, you know, maybe it's like 70 percent for a lot of people and then they'll have like a sort of split of a few other things for the last 30 But to be able to sustain that 95 percent is certainly impressive. Tell me about your partnerships business.

What are some of the brands you're working with and like, what are the terms of these? Are you doing like, we're going to do this many LinkedIn posts in a month, et cetera, plus this other thing, this other thing. Who are you working with and how are you working with them?