Influencer & Creator Marketing · Chicago, IL
Turn creators into a revenue channel.
There is almost certainly six figures sitting inside the creator program you already have. I find it in seven places, in 21 days — and if I don't find it, you don't pay.
No email required. Run the checklist yourself and keep whatever you find.
The honest part
You've probably been burned by this before.
Most brands don't have an influencer problem. They have an influencer accounting problem. Three leaks show up in almost every program I open.
Spend disappears into a black hole
Big invoices, pretty content, and nothing your CFO can attribute to revenue. When finance can't see the return, the channel gets cut before it ever gets a fair run.
Sourcing by gut feel
You chase whoever is loudest in your category instead of building a vetted bench of creators proven to convert your audience. Follower counts are not a pricing model.
Compliance kills the channel
In a regulated category, every campaign feels one disclosure mistake away from a call with legal — so the safe move becomes doing nothing at all.
If any of that sounds familiar, the rest of this page will read like I've been sitting in your meetings.
Free · no email required
Run the audit yourself.
This is the actual field checklist I run inside a $5,000 engagement — all seven leaks, what to ask, what healthy looks like, and how to put a dollar figure on each one.
I'm giving it away because most of the value is knowing where to look. Brands who run it and find nothing were never going to hire me. Brands who find three leaks and no time to fix them tend to call.
Why me
Twelve years on both sides of the deal.
I've spent 12+ years building influencer, creator and affiliate programs for brands — and 10+ years in front of the camera as sponsored talent. I know exactly how creators price, negotiate and perform, because I have been the creator.
I've run the budget
Built and led full-funnel influencer and affiliate programs, managed agencies, and priced talent on performance — not follower counts.
I've signed the contract
10+ magazine covers, global campaigns and brand spokesperson roles across fitness, wellness and nutrition. I know what creators will actually accept, and what they'll walk from.
That combination means better deals, faster trust, and programs designed around what drives revenue — not what looks good in a recap deck.
Track record
Results, not impressions.
Programs built and scaled for
- Bodybuilding.com
- Dymatize Nutrition
- Tiege Hanley
- Futures trading platform (regulated)
Scope
What you actually get.
Not a strategy doc and a handshake. Sourcing, negotiating, briefing and reporting — every week.
A program that runs itself
Channel strategy, budgets, KPIs and the operating playbook your team keeps and can run without me.
A bench that converts
A performance-vetted roster matched to your audience, not just your category.
Deals that favor you
Performance pricing, perpetual usage rights and exclusivity — negotiated by someone who has sat on the talent side of the table.
A channel legal signs off on
Disclosure standards baked into briefs and contracts, written for compliance review rather than around it.
Numbers your CFO believes
Attribution, ROI methodology and executive reporting that tie creator spend to tracked revenue.
Execution, not advice
I'm embedded in your team weekly — sourcing, negotiating, briefing and reporting, not consulting from a distance.
The edge
Regulated categories are harder. That's why they pay.
Most agencies avoid trading platforms, brokerages and fintech apps because disclosure rules and compliance reviews slow them down. I built an influencer channel inside a futures trading platform from zero — sourcing, deal structure and compliance. So compliance isn't a blocker in my programs. It's the design constraint I start from.
- Briefs and contracts written for compliance review, not around it
- Talent vetted for credibility in money topics — audiences can smell a fake
- Measurement that satisfies both marketing and legal, in the same report
Categories I serve
Product brands and platforms with real creator budgets.
Fintech, trading & crypto CPG — fitness, wellness, nutrition DTC & consumer apps Streamers & creator-led brandsEngagements
Three ways to work together.
For context: agencies run $10–20k/mo plus markups on every creator invoice, and a full-time head of influencer runs $150k+/yr before you've booked a single creator.
The 7-Leak Revenue Audit
21 days · guaranteed · credited 100% toward a retainer
- All seven leaks audited against your real numbers
- Findings ranked by dollar impact against effort
- Ready-to-run 90-day playbook you keep either way
- Readout call with your marketing and finance leads
Included, yours to keep
- Perpetual usage-rights contract clause
- Dormant-affiliate reactivation sequence
- Attribution setup — codes, links, survey question
- Compliance-ready creator brief template
Fractional Head of Influencer
3-month minimum · founding rate · your channel, run end-to-end
- Embedded in your team weekly
- Sourcing, negotiation & roster management
- Campaign execution and reporting
- Cheaper than an agency, faster than a hire
Everything in the audit, plus
- The audit fee credited in full against month one
- Your creator contract template, rewritten
- Quarterly readout built for your board deck
- Your rate locked for as long as you stay
Performance Partnership
Plus 10% of tracked incremental revenue · requires clean attribution first
- Lower fixed cost, shared upside
- I only win when the channel does
- Same scope as the retainer
- Different split of the risk
Included
- Attribution build-out before the clock starts
- Incremental measured against your own baseline
That's the real limit of embedded weekly work done properly. When the four seats are full, new engagements start with the audit and go on a waitlist.
It goes up 30% after every fourth retainer client. Whatever rate you start at is the rate you keep for as long as you stay — the increase only ever applies to new clients.
The guarantee, again: if the audit doesn't surface at least three revenue opportunities you didn't already know about, you don't pay. You keep the playbook and every template above regardless.
Process
How an engagement starts.
Total time required from you: about ninety minutes across three weeks.
Intro call — 30 minutes
Your goals, your current program, and whether this is a fit. No charge, no deck-reading — just questions. If an audit isn't worth your $5,000, I'll say so on this call.
Access — 15 minutes of your time
Read-only access to your analytics and ad account, and an intro to whoever holds the creator contracts. I pull, sort and read everything else myself. You are not assembling a data room for me.
Audit & playbook — 21 days
I go through your creator spend, deals, roster and attribution, then hand you findings ranked by dollar impact and a 90-day roadmap you own either way.
Execute — your call
Run the playbook yourself, or bring me in to build and run the program alongside your team. The audit fee comes off month one either way.
Straight answers
The questions people actually ask.
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency gives you an account manager, a markup on every creator invoice, and a program you don't own. I give you the operator directly, no markup on talent fees, and a documented playbook your team keeps whether or not we keep working together. Agencies typically run $10–20k/mo plus those markups.
Why not just hire someone full-time?
Eventually you should. A full-time head of influencer runs $150k+/yr in salary alone, takes three to six months to hire, and most brands don't yet know what to hire for. I build the channel, prove the numbers, then help you write the job description for the person who inherits it.
What's the fastest thing I could fix myself, today?
Usage rights. Most brands pay for a post, watch it die in 48 hours, then pay separately for studio creative that converts worse than the creator content they already bought. Adding perpetual paid usage to your next three contracts costs almost nothing at signing and roughly doubles the working life of every dollar. That one's free — no call needed. The checklist above has six more like it.
My program is already running. Is there anything left to find?
Usually yes, and usually in the same place: dormant affiliates. Every program I've opened has had roughly ten times more signed affiliates than active ones. Those are people who already raised their hand and never got a reason to move. A reactivation push with restructured commission is the cheapest revenue in the building — no new spend, no new contracts.
How much work is this for my team?
About ninety minutes total: a 30-minute intro call, 15 minutes to grant read-only access and make one introduction, and a 45-minute readout at the end. I don't send document requests and wait. If your data is messy, that's a finding, not a delay.
Do you work in regulated categories?
That's the specialty. I built a futures trading platform's influencer channel from zero, including deal structure and compliance. Disclosure requirements are the starting design constraint in every brief and contract I write, not an afterthought that legal discovers later.
Why does the rate go up, and what happens to mine?
I can run four retainer clients at a time and I raise the rate 30% after every fourth. It's how a solo practice manages demand without hiring or lowering quality. Your rate is locked at whatever you start at, for as long as you stay — increases only ever apply to new clients. That's not a countdown timer, it's just the order the queue works in.
What if the audit doesn't find anything?
Then you don't pay. If it doesn't surface at least three revenue opportunities you didn't already know about, the invoice goes away and you still keep the 90-day playbook and every template. It's happened — some programs are genuinely well run, and I'd rather tell you that than invent work.
Who is this not for?
Pre-revenue brands with no creator budget, and anyone looking for a one-off campaign or a list of influencers to email. This is for brands that want creators to become a tracked, permanent revenue line — and are willing to fix attribution to get there.
Next step
Have you given up on making creators a revenue channel?
If not, let's talk for 30 minutes. I'll come with questions, not a pitch — and if I'm not the right fit, I'll point you to whoever is.
- Emaillawrence.ballenger23@gmail.com
- Phone312-868-9405
- LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/lawrenceballenger
- Not ready to talk?Take the free checklist instead — no email required