Hey guys, Jon Rettinger. Excuse my background because I'm still moving in and haven’t hung anything up on the walls behind me and still deciding what the best picture for the background this week. So any suggestions please let me know. So let's get started to make this video with the intention of doing a viewer mail back. I'm going through the internet for some question that you guys have.
But as I go through or read through all the messages I realized that there's one question that I'm getting more than any other and that is how do you get this gadgets reviews, where do they come from and how much time do you do it? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is I'm sorry guys there's not a magic email address or magic photo whatever you call them. All of a sudden you're a technology reviewer and companies are sending you stuff. It’s just not the way it works unfortunately.
The good news is that I can't give you some hints and suggestion down maybe you can get on the road to having products sent to you if you're a professional reviewer. So guys as I go through in this stuff just keep in mind there are a few steps you may find your own way. Your own techniques may work a little bit better. There are just some suggestions that I have and some of the tribulations that I've gone through to get to the point where I'm at now and some of the stuff I'm still going through to get to where I want to be.
So first and foremost you have to have an audience. If you’ve got 20 of the least subscribers unfortunately companies aren’t going to send you things. You have to have a substantial audience. I've start reaching out to companies until I have about 8000 subscribers and even that is a low number and the people weren’t very responsive. I did start getting responses until I cross into 10,000, 11,000, 12, 000 subscribers. It’s where really to start to get some responses. So what I could suggest is what I did was with the companies that I was interested and I promise them I want to do a review and I send them emails.
I said, “Hi, my name is Jon Rettinger. I'm technology reviewer. I've got an audience of8000. My videos reviewed however many wasn’t at that time, maybe 500,000 a month. I've got a wife variety of viewership. Here is what my demographic is, here is why I think you should send me products to review.” And be prepared guys for a lot of rejection. It’s not easy and it’s not easy road. I also get a rejected quite a bit. You guys don’t see that. You just see that something that I get but just be prepared.
Another thing you guys want to do is build relationships so build relationships with some of your local electronics merchants, so maybe go to your local radio shop, go to your local Best Buy and tell them who you are. Maybe they’ll give you products to review. Show them who you are and tell them you're interested in. Tell them what you want to do. Make sure they see a benefit to letting you review these products. You know, they have to get something in return. They have to get exposure whether it’s good or bad. I mean that’s what you have you offer them.
Never guarantee a good review and think you lose your credibility. You know, companies understand that you may not like the product as long as it presents your reviews fairly most companies will be okay with the less than five or less in glowing review. That is essentially something to keep in mind. The next thing that I recommend guys after we’ll be emailing start up small, call some smaller companies that don’t have much exposure. If you're in the iPhones maybe find the phone number and email address about a small manufacturer that makes Kisses. Drop them or like start up a little bit small show value to one potential partner so you can build it as your guide greater and bigger partners.
Guys, nothing really simple, there's no magic road to follow unfortunately like I said there's no phone number or email address I can give you guys for all of sudden you're a tech reviewer. The best advice that I can give you is to just build your audience, build it up and people will come to you.
You know, now I get contact with my companies that are looking to send me products. Some I accept, some I don’t. You know, I'm still reaching out to lot of different companies, a lot of different manufacturers. Like I said earlier I'm still getting rejected quite a bit so be prepared for that. You know and for second so if ask professionals if you're young, if you're 10, 11, 12, or 13 be prepared for companies to tell you no. It’s just the reality of things that they may not want to send the products to kids and I don’t agree with that. It may not be right but just be prepared for. I don’t want to upset you guys up for your sort of this appointment.
You know, because you are young what you're going to do now is build your audience so if you get to be a little bit older you’ve got such a live user base. All these companies will have no choice but to send you products to review. Now most or a lot of the products that you get don’t get a key. All the phones I have I just get to use for a few weeks and I send back. Most things I don’t get a hold on to so be prepared for that as well. Don’t think that because you're getting stuff some of your electronic treasure chests are going grow. It’s just not going to happen unfortunately.
So the product that I review I go out and buy on my own and then maybe all sell them later or I'll keep them. Some gets at to me by companies. You know some are set from sponsors. You know, I really get my electronics from a really of myriad different ways. You know, one of the things I keep forgetting is sometimes I simply get myself as just the guy with the camera who unboxes MacBook Pro about two years ago. You know, you don’t have try and change my opinion on it. I guess I've been evolving and I'm growing in that becoming more of a brand and it’s been hard to transition our way from just being dude to maybe being more of an entity with people that helped me and work with me. It’s been a little bit difficult transition.
You know, you guys are probably going to come to that as well as you start building up your audience and maybe as you make a website or you make a podcast. You become less about you and more about your brand, so be prepared for that as well and make sure you can package your brand professionally.
You know if you want to be a technology reviewer and you want me take it seriously don’t tell dirty jokes. Don’t use a profanity. Be very mindful of your language. Don’t say ahs and uhms. Make sure you look directly in the camera and like I said my advice for tech reviewers show confidence in yourself and I think that really will translate well.
Anyway guys, I hope you found this helpful. I've tried to answer the biggest question that I get. I do read all the emails guys so please keep them coming. I can't always response but if I'm getting lots of questions that always saying that I will really will do my best to try to answer it. Anyway guys I hope you enjoy. For exclusive content be sure to follow me at Twitter@Twitter.com/Jon4Lakers. I will see you guys in the next video. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
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