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Rian Donatelli drops a solo episode that jumps into what a Brand Ambassador really is and what the common requirements are for them, steps they can take in getting started with an agency, and a few tips on how to be successful once hired.
In today's episode, we discuss what it takes to become a brand ambassador, how to get into the industry, and how to get with the right partners. We will go over what you need to start applying for positions, how to prepare for an interview and items to ask prior to going to work to meet expectations.
Timestamps:
2:27 - How do you get started as a BA?
5:32 - Vetting agencies
11:21 - Do your research on the brand
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Find Rian:
https://linktr.ee/riandonatelli
Instagram: @riandonatelli
Website: riandonatelli.com
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Modeling Success is created to bridge the gap between talent and brand. Putting everything out on the table, addressing current situations and hot unspoken topics that are happening in the industry that need to change. We will address topics such as the models and brand's point of view on industry topics. As well as discussing success in the industry, what it is to be a model and what agencies and brands are looking for when seeking talent. Just because you get paid for pictures does not make you a model. A model is "a system or thing used as an example to follow or imitate". A model is someone or something one aspires to become, someone who works their butt off and is someone people can look up to. This podcast is here to assist Talent in learning pride and true tactics for success in the industry.
I, Rian Donatelli, will use my 25+ years experience within this industry to discuss all these topics and more through conversions and panels with other people in the industry from talent to brand executives to the venues and establishments that we are operating in. We are going to find some hard truths that need to be heard on all fronts.
Welcome back to modeling success. I'm your host, Ryan Donatelli. Let's get started. And welcome back to modeling success. My name is Ryan Donatelli, as you know.
Speaker 1:And today, we are going to just briefly chat about what it is to be a brand ambassador and how you get started in the industry. There's not really a perfect road map out there, so I am definitely pioneering on the educational front and taking all of my knowledge into a few master classes, trainings, and courses. But I think it's only fair that we put some of this content out there for those that are looking to get into the business and into the industry. So first and foremost, what is a brand ambassador? And a brand ambassador is an extension of someone's Salesforce, a person who is employed by an organization or company that represents a brand and and so in a positive light and, to the goal being to increase brand awareness and ultimately sales.
Speaker 1:So a brand ambassador is meant to embody the corporate identity and appearance, demeanor, values, and ethics that that brand is to exude, and the key element of a brand ambassador is the ability to use promotional strategies that will strengthen the customer product or service relationship and influence the target audience, and all by resulting in sales. So we want to be memorable. We want to be theatrical. We want to exude that brand culture and presence and everything that the brand stands for in the moment that we are in front of the consumer. So let's dive in.
Speaker 1:A brand ambassador can be anything from guerilla marketing to a product specialist, on premise or off premise samplings, which would be bars and restaurants on premise, off premise being packaged stores like convenience stores or liquor stores or, you know, total wine, BevMo, Albertsons, any of these chain grocery accounts, that sell closed container packaging. You could be an emcee. You can be a sales specialist, even an online influencer for brands. So all of these are categories of brand ambassador, and they're all ways of reaching target consumers being influential in the experiential marketing space. So how do you get started?
Speaker 1:First and foremost, you'll wanna have photos. You'll wanna have a full body shot. You'll wanna have a headshot. These don't need to be professionally taken, but they should definitely be only you, high quality, at least from your phone. No filters.
Speaker 1:No cropped images. No mirror pics. Have someone take this for you. Make sure your background is bland. Make sure your clothing is appropriate.
Speaker 1:If you want to wear all black in front of a white wall, just headshot full body shot needs to be your current hair color, your actual eye color, and how you're going to represent yourself when you show up to these. I think the biggest mistake I see is people send these photos of them all glammed up on New Year's Eve with zero intention of ever looking like that until next New Year's. So make sure you represent yourself appropriately in the photos, that it is current. It is your current weight, your current hair, as I said, hairstyle and eye color, skin tone, etcetera. So if it's winter and your photos are very tan and you will not look like that, consider updating your images every 6 months and every season with the agencies that you're with.
Speaker 1:But to prepare, make sure you have a headshot, a full body shot, no cropped images, no selfies, and no mirror pics, and that will get you started in your photos. Again, it does not have to be professionally taken, but it should be of professional caliber. Next is your resume. Some agencies prefer a resume of your work history so they can understand you and get to know you as a person. That is at my agency, Talent Booking Experts.
Speaker 1:But I believe at most agencies, a resume of any kind that can be your brand ambassador work, or it could be your actual work resume of all of your employment history. Doing a hybrid of both is great When you come, to the brand ambassador part of your resume, please be cognizant of the length of your resume. So you do not need to list every brand you have represented. You can list the years you have been in the, industry and in the field of a brand ambassador. In a short paragraph, you can list the major companies.
Speaker 1:So Anheuser Anheuser Busch InBev would be a company that you can highlight. You do not need to list Bud Light, Budweiser, Bud Select, and every Budweiser brand that there is. Just AB InBev would be sufficient on the resume to let an agency know of your experience. All major, brands are underneath an umbrella of a larger corporation. So know what that looks like, and that can be your resume and the distance of it needs to be essentially a paragraph or less, just highlighting the brands or maybe be the categories of brand ambassador work that you have, and more importantly, the skill set.
Speaker 1:So you will need 2 photos and a resume for most agencies to apply, and then prepare for the interview. Vet the agency that you are applying with before applying. Make sure you know about them, the brands they represent, the style of work that they do, a little bit about their company and how they got started. Maybe look into who you're interviewing with. There's nothing worse than a promotional model that shows up and does not look anything like her photos.
Speaker 1:The catfishing days are over with social media being so largely in play. We're going to catch on, and then you will need to eventually meet someone at the company. So represent yourself accordingly. Your resume needs to be yours. That is finding resumes that you can tell were taken from somewhere else or not fully completed because the agency or the person you're interviewing with.
Speaker 1:You should always, just for your own integrity, want to make sure that it's a good fit for you and that the agency's, you know, a good agency to work for. So before your interview or applying, do all of these steps just to make sure you're going to be working with the right people and in alignment with your core values. Next would be booking yourself and applying for jobs. Couple big mistakes I see are not reading the job application fully. So you are not going to be meeting criteria in step 1 alone, which will not get you any further with the agency in their application process.
Speaker 1:You could get through their application process and although not be a good fit for what they're looking for at the moment, you may qualify for the agency in general. But if you do not read the job, either posting, application process, or the needs, or criteria for the application itself, you may find yourself not moving forward at all just because you didn't thoroughly read or have all of the credentials. So know about the age, know about what they're looking for, where the job is, the distance it takes to get there. So are you willing to go on your own dime before you even apply? And the licenses that you must have.
Speaker 1:Knowing your state laws is key in this industry, and it's on you to do the research, 1st and foremost. But know which licenses you need. When you are dealing with alcohol, the majority of the United States requires you to have a permit to sample alcohol with a liquor license holder. So be aware of what licenses you need to have, 1st and foremost. And secondly, anything else in certifications that will make you be selected above other applicants.
Speaker 1:If you can have a health permit and it's a $15 for 3 years, that only sets you further apart from your competition. So know about your liquor licenses that you need independently. Know about the solicitor permits, if needed, in certain states for you to operate as an independent contractor representing brands, and also know about your legal laws, the do's and don'ts in the business and in the industry. Every state has different compliance. Every state has different laws on sampling and sampling size and how to sample.
Speaker 1:So when dealing with alcohol, know exactly what you can and cannot do in the state and county that you're in. Preparing further, have a promo emergency kit. These would be, apparel basics that you would wanna keep in your car. Maybe safety pins, bobby pins, wet wipes, mints, fingernail clippers, any grooming devices that you may need, ponytail holders, lipstick, maybe black tank top, white tank top, black pants, black shorts, whatever the the role is requiring of you, maybe have an extra set just for the person you're working with, just so you can succeed from the beginning when you show up on-site. Couple other things to know is how your hair is to be done, tattoos and what the tattoos parameters are.
Speaker 1:If you need to have all your tattoos covered up, if you're allowed to have tattoos, if they are approved by the agency to be tasteful and visible. So know what the agency and brand is looking for, when it comes to certain piercings and tattoos that you may have. Always consider getting your shoes approved in advance as well if they're asking for a certain style of shoe. I would always get it preapproved by the manager or the hiring booking agent. Then you'll want to prepare for your role, know where you're going, where you're parking, the traffic that's going to be in play getting there.
Speaker 1:You'll wanna be cognizant of the distance from the parking lot into the venue and if there is any transportation in between the 2. So often, you will have employee parking be different from areas that you are actually activating in. You know, Talent Booking Experts being based in Las Vegas, we often have to park in garages and walk a distance to an account. So knowing how far that is, knowing who has any giveaway items, knowing who your point of contact is, will they be on-site, is it going to be someone else? There's so many event details that come into play that you'll wanna consider when signing up for an event.
Speaker 1:So be aware of all of these items prior to applying with agencies, prior to applying for events, and then also learn what the outcome is of the activation. In experiential marketing now in the world in the US, we are always trying to achieve a goal. So that could be anything from building brand awareness to gaining a social media following for the brand, not for you personally. Maybe it's getting data capture. Maybe it's, you know, signing up people for an event.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's photos. And most often, it will be sales. So do your research on the brands you're representing. Know about the products on your own before you show up on-site. Something that is extremely attractive that agencies, and brand like is when brand ambassadors show up and have questions about the brand or the relationship with celebrities or maybe how the brand came about, maybe a question about something the distiller said.
Speaker 1:There's so many things about the brand that are intriguing of how we got to where we are and why we're doing what we're doing, and understanding that is important. So anytime a brand ambassador can show up to an event and have questions that's, you know, I think in a booking agent's eyes and brand's eyes, it shows that you're interested in the job that you're doing. You care about the outcome and you wanna deliver and surpass expectation. So be aware of these things, and you also wanna know these things for the recap. If there is a recap for an event, which majority of events do all require a recap, it will either be 1 per person or 1 per team.
Speaker 1:You'll wanna know that in advance. And then what entails a full and complete recap? What is recap expectation? So asking your booking agent for an example of that up front so you can prepare and get in the know and get used to their ways of working is definitely something you'll wanna do to surpass, again, your, competition, your competitors, your coworkers, and just surpass the event expectation as well. If you like the agency that you're working for, there's the potential of becoming a team lead.
Speaker 1:So knowing what that looks like in the growth game within the company and, being able to do more with them and for them on a more consistent basis, you can also ask in your interview or your booking agent. So these are all items of how to get into the business, how to grow within the business as well, The stepping stones that you can expect to see as a brand ambassador are, obviously, brand ambassador is your first step. Then you would go into market leader, team lead. You can move up in that brand ambassador role and become a sales specialist, a product specialist, and be more on a consistent regular booking or a term booking of 4 to 6 months, you can go into the distributor side, and you can become a merchandiser, for the distributor or agencies. You can do secret shopping.
Speaker 1:You could also become a a rep for a distributor that could be nonalcoholic or alcoholic. But you can move up into the distributor side of the business, and that could also entail management roles and specialty focus. So maybe working on 1 or 2 brands as a brand manager under that distributor. And then you have your supplier side of the business. So you could go work directly for Samsung.
Speaker 1:You could go work directly for Anheuser Busch InBev and potentially go in that direction on the supplier side, starting with a sales specialist, into a specialty role, into maybe a state manager, national accounts, events and promotions role. There's a lot of roles on the supplier side that keep you in the in market activation element as well. So a lot of opportunity that can come from this experiential marketing world and becoming a brand ambassador. I do have a certification coming out soon called TalentBook Masterclass. This will be an educational house of every certification you could need for the industry.
Speaker 1:So we are starting with brand ambassador master class, and then we will have our team lead master class. We will continue to evolve and offer master classes for influencer voice over, every realm that you could think of in this industry. Every niche of the business possible, we will try to put together a certification and a training platform, underneath TalentBook Masterclass where you can find all of your learnings and certifications for the business. So that is just a little bit about how to get in the industry. Obviously, once you have your photos and resume ready, you'll want to consider joining the Facebook groups in the market that you're in that, will guide you into agencies and brands hiring.
Speaker 1:There are a few apps out there like Pop Bookings, where you can create a profile and start applying with agencies immediately. And then also talk to some of your girlfriends. In the Facebook groups, ask for referrals. Maybe try to get a couple letters of recommendation from brands you've represented that might not have been a brand ambassador role at the time, but it could essentially be a retail, or a restaurant job that you had where you were representing the brand on and off the clock and trying to drive business back to that establishment that you worked in. So when you're writing your resume, think broad, think about just building brand awareness.
Speaker 1:If you have any questions or tips, you can always check out the articles that we have. Just Google Ryan Donatelli articles online, talent booking experts, and connections consulting and marketing solutions is great resource as well. And if you have any questions, simply send me a DM or contact me on my website, ryan donatelli.com, and I will try to answer any questions you may have about becoming a brand ambassador, getting into the industry, or simply just apply with talent booking experts dotcom and use me as a reference from this podcast, and we will start training you today. Thank you so much for your time and listening in, and we will see you on the other side. Thank you for joining us at the table of modeling success.
Speaker 1:I am your host, Ryan Donatelli, and you can find me on all social channels, mainly Instagram, LinkedIn, and ryandonatelli.com. Make sure to rate review and subscribe. I meet us here every week where we will be discussing the actual happenings that no one wants to openly talk about talent and entertainment industry.