Right About Now with Ryan Alford
The Future of Influencer & Athlete Marketing with Ishveen Jolly
Tue, 22 Apr 2025
Right About Now with Ryan AlfordJoin media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.Resources:Right About Now NewsletterFree Podcast Monetization CourseJoin The NetworkFollow Us On InstagramSubscribe To Our Youtube ChannelVibe Science MediaSUMMARYIn this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford and guest Ishveen Jolly, CEO and co-founder of Open Sponsorship, explore the evolving landscape of influencer sponsorships in modern marketing. They discuss how influencer partnerships serve as a contemporary form of word-of-mouth marketing, crucial for brand growth. Ish shares insights on the challenges and opportunities in the industry, emphasizing the importance of amplifying content and understanding the distinction between brand awareness and direct sales. The conversation highlights the need for brands to adapt their strategies, nurture client relationships, and leverage influencer collaborations effectively for maximum ROI.TAKEAWAYSThe significance of influencer sponsorships as a modern form of word-of-mouth marketing.The evolution of the influencer marketing industry and its impact on brand strategies.Challenges brands face in effectively leveraging influencer partnerships.The importance of amplifying content created through influencer collaborations.Distinction between brand awareness and direct sales in influencer marketing.The role of authenticity in marketing and consumer engagement.The necessity for brands to understand influencers' motivations and needs.The shift from acquiring new clients to nurturing existing client relationships.The cost-effectiveness and personalization of influencer marketing compared to traditional advertising.The evolving landscape of influencer marketing with the rise of new platforms like TikTok.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guests of this episode?
This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.
What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always keeping it right for you. You know, you know it right. You know, I mean, the website is RyanIsRight.com. You know, that's why I bring the best and the brightest from around the globe. Coming from London today. We're all over the planet. We got you covered, baby. We're talking all about sponsorships. NIL. Have anybody heard of that?
I'm going to go there with our guest. We're going to tell you what that means. But ultimately, it's about getting value for your marketing dollar. We got Ishveen Jolly. She's the CEO and co-founder of Open Sponsorship. What's up, Ishveen?
Hey, Ryan. Thanks for the intro.
Yeah. Hey, we're in this marketing game together. You know, we got to stick together. I love it. I know. It's a fascinating world out there, navigating new media, the new stars, the new spokesperson, all the people. You got all the changing laws and rules with what happened with NIL in the U.S. I want to get down that path. But at the end of the day, it's about I always say this is fame.
People have never been more aware that they're being marketing to, you know, being marketed to. They know. And so you've got to be more authentic and you've got to use their peers to sort of get to them. That's what I really love about what you guys are doing with open sponsorship. Let's set the table for everyone and they can go check out your YouTubes and all the stuff there.
Ishveen's got all the accolades in the world. Let me just tell you, I'll let her mention a few of them when she describes herself. Very accomplished. And her journey stories are out there. So we won't go to that. We want to keep it real raw and interesting about the topic.
But Ishveen, do set the table and, you know, give everybody a little synopsis of open sponsorship and, you know, give a little bit of the brag reel. Come on.
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Chapter 2: What is Open Sponsorship and Ishveen Jolly’s background?
Chapter 3: Why is influencer sponsorship considered the new word-of-mouth marketing?
Why is influencer, sponsor the it medium for helping grow a brand of any size?
It's the new word of mouth marketing.
This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.
What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always keeping it right for you. You know, you know it right. You know, I mean, the website is RyanIsRight.com. You know, that's why I bring the best and the brightest from around the globe. Coming from London today. We're all over the planet. We got you covered, baby. We're talking all about sponsorships. NIL. Have anybody heard of that?
I'm going to go there with our guest. We're going to tell you what that means. But ultimately, it's about getting value for your marketing dollar. We got Ishveen Jolly. She's the CEO and co-founder of Open Sponsorship. What's up, Ishveen?
Hey, Ryan. Thanks for the intro.
Yeah. Hey, we're in this marketing game together. You know, we got to stick together. I love it. I know. It's a fascinating world out there, navigating new media, the new stars, the new spokesperson, all the people. You got all the changing laws and rules with what happened with NIL in the U.S. I want to get down that path. But at the end of the day, it's about I always say this is fame.
People have never been more aware that they're being marketing to, you know, being marketed to. They know. And so you've got to be more authentic and you've got to use their peers to sort of get to them. That's what I really love about what you guys are doing with open sponsorship. Let's set the table for everyone and they can go check out your YouTubes and all the stuff there.
Ishveen's got all the accolades in the world. Let me just tell you, I'll let her mention a few of them when she describes herself. Very accomplished. And her journey stories are out there. So we won't go to that. We want to keep it real raw and interesting about the topic.
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Chapter 4: How does Open Sponsorship operate and what markets do they focus on?
Yes. And we're getting into really fast and nitty gritty, but I love it because you just nailed it. We've worked with a lot of brands. I've been on both sides of it. I own a digital agency and a podcast network. And then now, I mean, I hate even using my word of the name influencer, but got a good following, good show. And so I'm on all sides of it.
And it pains me when we've like worked with brands and they don't atomize it and use it the way you just said. Like, I'm like, I just gave you gold or one of my clients or one of, you know, we gave you gold and you treated it like silver. Like it's like, why didn't you use it all over the place? It's like, it doesn't need to just live within the influencer's channel. You got to amplify it.
That's such a miss, isn't it sometimes?
100%. And this is why, you know, we talked about it slightly when we were kind of chatting before that. We started off, you know, I created open sponsorship with my co-founder as the LinkedIn, the Airbnb, the match.com of the industry. You know, we were like, right, we're going to help you find the person, connect, boom, done. And then...
We realized in the journey that if you're on like a dating site or like a job recruitment site or something, if you get the match, that's success. But we were, people were coming to us and they're like, great, you, you're great. But what the outcome wasn't, the ROI wasn't there.
And I was like, shit, I need to start thinking about the ROI on these deals because otherwise we're just going to see all of these guys like trying at once and leaving. And then we did what you did. We started trying to build into what you were saying. We tried to build into the platform. Have you thought about doing this? Have you thought about doing this and share this?
And then we realized people just either don't have the time, the knowledge or whatever else. And so that's kind of why about three years ago, we were like, you know what? We're going to get rid of the self-service. We're going to be completely full service. We're going to be like an extension of your team. And we're going to like make you we're going to we're going to do it for you.
Great examples like. A few months ago, I was speaking to my team and I didn't even know that they did this, but like they'll go to like a tool like CapCut and they'll put music overlay and the text overlay onto a video. And I was like, you do that for our clients?
And they're like, yeah, but it's just like, it's harder to get them to do it and teach them and say, oh, this video would be so much more effective. They're like, we'll just do it for them and it'll take a few seconds. And so I think like what I've realized is it's whatever the brand's reason is, is to not do, it's ultimately our problem.
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Chapter 5: Why is amplifying influencer content important for brands?
And so there's no point in doing these partnerships if you're not going to make it happen.
Yes. And what you realize is the total, I don't know, It's the total – filling the entire circle in, okay, is not just connecting brand to influencer. It's all the magic in between, making sure the content gets done, making sure the content gets used. You've got to lead them to the water and make them drink it.
Yeah, I got it. Honestly, yeah.
It's true because ultimately – It's what makes it work. And the only way for it to keep happening and to have success is if it works. Right.
A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Yeah. I love that. And it's an interesting pivot. I mean, I've definitely seen with like the athletes, especially, you know, they can get all these deals. They want the deals. But, you know, creating content is like the hardest part, isn't it? How many emails have been sent with, we got to get content for this brand.
Yeah. I'm making it not look like it was like read off the script or that they've been forced to do it. Definitely a challenge that still exists. Yeah. I think, again, going back to the point, like, what are you using them for? So if what you want is content creation and great UGC to put in ads, don't use that guy who never does reels and, like, is a little bit stiff.
But if what you want is to be able to say that you sponsor the quarterback of Clemson, then great. Then... you know, or whatever else, then... And I think that's the other thing is I realize that a lot of times when you... And I do this as a CEO with a marketing budget. You conflate everything. You're like... You start off going, I want... I want a testimonial.
And then five weeks later, you're like, oh, but it didn't produce sales. And you're like, well, that was never the goal. And so I think it's really important. Again, the benefit of being hand in hand is like you can keep saying, remind that this is the goal of this campaign. This is the goal of this partnership. If you want to change the goal, we've got to change the creative.
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Chapter 6: What challenges do brands face in influencer marketing and how does Open Sponsorship address them?
We might need to change the person. We've got to change the deliverables. So it's like if you like a great example is if you want sales, reels doesn't allow you to have a link.
Yeah.
It's not going to produce sales. But if you want a brand awareness piece, stories disappear after 24 hours. Very, very different. Which one do you want?
Yeah, that's I'm going to go down that path with you here. But since you brought up Clemson, I mean, you know, as a Clemson guy.
No, I didn't.
I graduated from Clemson. I'm a Clemson grad. Yes, Tigers. Kay Klubnick. Yeah. Is he on your platform?
Don't ask me questions about individuals. I'm sorry.
Oh, I won't go there. I know. He should be. He's going to win the Heisman this year.
I'm going to say the answer is yes because I have faith in my team.
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Chapter 7: How should brands measure ROI and set realistic goals for influencer campaigns?
And that's why I love the space that we're in because I used to say, we're not influencer marketing, we're sports sponsorship. And then obviously I was like, all right, we're influencer marketing.
And sports sponsorship is kind of... Yeah, exactly.
Well, if you're the buyer and you buy influencer marketing, I'm here for it. Yeah, exactly. But I'd also say like, with the rise of the athlete and the celebrity and the TV star all becoming... better value, I think it's hard for someone who's not famous for a reason to make money from brand awareness. And they're probably the ones doing the affiliate deals.
I know. I just, and I understand it. I just, it more drives the shit out of me that brands sort of expect it like more than they should, I think. And I get that the dollars have gotten to where they want it. Look, we need outcomes. But if your funnel's not good, it doesn't have anything to do with how good my read is.
And so if I do a read, how do we know that the vacuum cleaner I'm pushing doesn't get sold three weeks from now and I get no attribution for it?
I wish there were more. And we've done a few of these. I wish the deals were like more creatively set up. So it's like, OK, what does your funnel look like? I can guarantee you this amount of traffic. Let's pay for that. And then let's do royalties on top of. So it de-risks you. It gives me a bit of upside. But there's also...
Like you said, if your website crashes on that day, I shouldn't be held. And also, I say this to our brands. We're not in the business of understanding your competitive set, your pricing, your packaging, your flavors. So we can't predict the success. But I do feel like there's probably a myth that it's like no guarantee or sales. Ideally, it should be like a guarantee of something within funnel.
Yep. And that would be easy, right, Ryan? Because then you'd be like, well, if I don't hit it, I'll just do two extra ad reads for free. And if I do hit it... Exactly.
Exactly. We'll hit it.
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Chapter 8: What are the pros and cons of affiliate and royalty-based influencer deals?
You know, we'll deliver it. But it can't just be bottom line sales because there's just too many complicated... I mean, I'm not saying never. It depends on the... Like you said earlier, you know, trying to get an Instagram reel to drive sales. Good luck. I mean, you got to have a really tight funnel or like... Because you... Friction is the enemy of influencer deals. And what do I mean by that?
From knowledge to click, from influence to sale has to be super clean.
I think also the other thing is, like you said, awareness or whatever else. What that also does is it goes against everything we were saying before, which is like, The value is also in like using that ad read and putting it in paid ads, posting on LinkedIn, posting it organically, doing a marketing email and being like, hey, did you see us on this podcast?
Like did you like, you know, or putting it like using it in PR. And so by trying to make it free, you're basically saying it's got no value anywhere else other than the influencers channel, which is like the wrong way to think about it. So. that whole thing doesn't really work. But I think what needs to happen is almost like there needs to be a very separated approach. Like your Mac, like,
you know, like your macro and what does that look like? Whether it's macro or micro or like strategies and buckets. And it's like, this is my royalty only people, but these are my people who do something else. And these are my people and they've all got different goals.
And that's what we've been trying to work on with our clients where we're like, your product only deal is for a testimonial or review for you to use. It's not going to drive sales because they've probably got less than 5,000 followers. Yep. This person, you know, they're going to produce content that you're going to put in your paid ads that you're going to be proud of, you know, blah, blah, blah.
I think there needs to be a college course or a re-education of the brand marketers out there. You know, the course put on by Ryan Offord and Ishving Jolly.
I love it. And it's going to be royalty-based only. Yeah, exactly.
Oh, talking to Isveen Jolly. She's the co-founder and CEO of Open Sponsorships, making it accessible to everyone. I think it's interesting serving the brand, serving the athletes. You've got to serve both if you want to eat. They're both part of the equation. They're both the main course. They're both equally important. Is it ever feel like you had to, you know, who am I serving first?
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