The Influencer VA — IFVA — is the single most important role for operating the affiliate community system from Module 1. Without them, the system doesn't run. With them, it runs at scale and you barely touch it.
Quick framing: the IFVA is the operator who runs the entire product seeding pipeline. Google Form applications come in → they review them → SignWell contracts get signed → they approve and invite to Shopify Collabs → Collabs handles auto-fulfillment of free product → creators land in the Discord community → the IFVA runs that community → posts come back → content gets collected for paid amplification.
If you've read Module 1's affiliate community playbook, the IFVA is the human who actually executes it day-to-day. The system from Module 1 is the operating manual. The IFVA is the person operating it.
This role is what takes the affiliate community from "great idea Brandon talked about in a video" to "actually running and producing content while you sleep." The SOP I use for this role is one of the most detailed in my entire ops library — the full version is gatekept inside the masterclass.
Why this hire matters
The affiliate community system from Module 1 only works as a snowball. It's designed to compound without your involvement — applications come in 24/7, creators sign contracts on their own time, Collabs auto-fulfills product, the Discord runs itself once seeded. The whole point is that the system grows while you sleep.
That snowball math only works if the operator is in place from the start. The IFVA isn't a "scale into it" hire — they're hired the moment you decide to run the system, not after the volume builds up.
If you try to operate the system yourself first ("I'll handle it for the first month, then hire someone once it's working"), you'll burn out at week 2 and kill the snowball before it starts. Applications stop getting reviewed within 24 hours. The Discord goes quiet. Creators ghost because nobody's there to nurture. The system collapses on itself.
The IFVA's job is to keep the snowball rolling. They review apps daily, they keep the Discord warm, they run the cadences, they collect content. You step in only for escalations.
What the role owns
The IFVA owns three specific outputs:
- The funnel — Reviewing applications (Form + SignWell pair), inviting qualified ones to Shopify Collabs
- The community — Running the Discord (with the Mod's structural support), keeping it warm and active
- The performance — Driving affiliate sales, post output, creator retention
Everything else is downstream of these three. If the funnel runs well, you get contracted creators. If the community runs well, those creators stay engaged and post. If performance is tracked, you know who to keep, scale, and prune.
Notice what's NOT on this list: the IFVA doesn't write contracts. They don't change commission structures. They don't make pricing decisions. They don't run paid ads. They operate a system that's already been built — they don't build it.
The Golden Rule of the role
The single rule that overrides everything else in this SOP:
Zero units ship without a signed SignWell contract. Period.
This rule prevents the most expensive failure mode of the entire system: shipping free product to creators who haven't agreed to terms, who don't have usage rights signed, who can later claim they didn't agree to anything.
The Golden Rule means applications are only complete when BOTH halves are submitted — the Google Form AND the SignWell signature. If only the Form came in, the application doesn't exist. If only SignWell signed, the application doesn't exist. The IFVA only reviews complete pairs.
If a creator pushes back on signing the contract, the answer is no. The IFVA is trained to escalate to founder if pushed. No exceptions on this rule.
This single principle has saved me thousands of dollars of shipped product to creators who would have ghosted after the fact. The contract is the gate. The IFVA's job is to enforce it.
Hiring the role
Where to find them:
- Onlinejobs.ph — my default for this role. Philippines-based talent with strong English, attention to detail, and reasonable rates ($600–$900/month full-time). Search for "social media coordinator," "community manager," or "influencer manager."
- Upwork — works for this role. Look for candidates with prior agency experience managing creator programs. Higher rates ($15–$30/hr) but pre-vetted.
- Network referrals — a friend's IFVA who's looking for a second brand to support. Slow to find but high quality.
- Domestic hires (US/Canada/UK) — only worth it for the role at scale (managing 500+ creators/month). $50K–$70K/year salary range.
What to look for:
- Community manager instinct. This person needs to enjoy talking to people, building rapport, making creators feel seen. If they're cold or transactional, the Discord community will die under their management.
- Attention to detail. The Golden Rule (Form + SignWell pair only) requires someone who actually verifies. Sloppy review = wasted product.
- Follow-through. The follow-up cadence (T+7, T+14, T+21, T+25, T+30) requires consistency. They need to actually do it, every day, without prompting.
- Comfortable with multiple platforms. Google Sheets, Shopify Collabs, SignWell, Discord, email — they need to navigate all of these without hand-holding.
- English proficiency for written communication. They're emailing creators directly. Writing matters.
The paid trial that filters:
Set them up with a fake test flow:
- Have them review a real application (or a junk test you submit yourself)
- Watch them check both halves of the contract pair
- Watch them send a Collabs invite (or simulate it)
- Have them write a sample reply email to a creator
- Have them post a sample Discord welcome message
Check:
- Did they catch the missing SignWell when it wasn't there? (Test this — submit a Form-only application and see if they catch it.)
- Was their email warm and on-brand?
- Was their Discord welcome warm and personalized?
- Did they update the tracking sheet correctly?
A bad IFVA will get sloppy on the contract check or sound robotic in DMs. A great one will be detail-oriented AND warm.
When to hire:
Day one. The moment you decide to run the affiliate community system from Module 1, hire this role. Before applications come in.
This is non-negotiable. The system is designed to snowball without you — that only works if the operator is in place from the start. Hiring "once volume builds up" is the wrong move; you'll be the bottleneck in the first 30 days when consistency matters most, and the snowball never starts.
Cost is roughly $5–$10/hr for offshore, $20–$30/hr for domestic. The math always works.
The day-to-day workflow
The IFVA's day looks like this (compressed from the full SOP):
Morning (~1 hour):
- Review new applications that came in overnight
- Check both halves are submitted (Form + SignWell)
- Auto-approve or auto-reject per the rubric
- Send Collabs invites to approved creators
- Update tracking sheet
Mid-day (~1 hour):
- Run the daily Discord cadence (welcome new members, reply to DMs, drop content prompt or spotlight)
- Check yesterday's product-delivered creators → start their T+7 cadence
- Check creators in T+21 window → confirm if they posted
Afternoon (~1.5 hours):
- Content collection — download posted content, organize in Drive, update tracking sheet
- Send T+25 nudges to creators who haven't posted yet
- Handle any escalations or red flags
- Submit daily report at EOD
Total: ~3.5 hours/day for a brand running 200–500 creators/month. Scales linearly with creator volume.
The follow-up cadence (the most important tactical detail)
The cadence below is measured from product delivery date, not approval date. Shipping delays vary; measuring from approval would punish creators for delays outside their control.
| Day | Action |
|---|---|
| Day 0 (Delivered) | No action. 14-day post window starts. |
| Day 7 from delivery | First check-in email — warm tone, "did you get the product, any questions" |
| Day 14 from delivery | Second nudge — gentle reminder this is the contract deadline |
| Day 21 from delivery | Confirm posts in Collabs reporting + platform check |
| Day 25 from delivery | Kind reminder of contract if not posted yet |
| Day 30 from delivery | Performance review → categorize as Active / Inactive / Ghost |
The exact email scripts for each touchpoint are gatekept inside the masterclass. The principle: warm, not threatening. Most creators who don't post aren't malicious — they got busy, forgot, or hit life issues. The cadence gives them grace while still enforcing the contract.
If a creator hits Day 30 without posting and doesn't respond to outreach: deactivate their tracking link, mark "Ghost" in tracking sheet, add to internal blacklist for future campaigns. Clean exit. No public callout. That's the rule — never burn a creator publicly even if they ghosted.
The application review rubric
The biggest mistake operators make with this role: over-filtering at the application gate.
The right philosophy: approve loose, filter by data.
Auto-approve if ALL of these:
- Both halves submitted (Google Form + SignWell)
- Matches target demo (gender, demographic)
- Within target age range (typically 18–55)
That's it. If the applicant meets those three criteria, approve and send the Collabs invite.
Auto-reject if ANY of these:
- Incomplete application (only Form OR only SignWell)
- Outside the target demo
- Outside the age range
Escalate to founder (don't auto-approve, don't auto-reject):
- 100K+ followers on any platform
- Verified accounts on IG/TikTok
- Founders of complementary brands
- Anyone with celebrity or industry connections
- Anything that feels off (aggressive in form, generic AI-written answers, asks for cash, has obvious red flags)
Approval rate expectation: 70–90%. We're filtering for completeness and basic eligibility, not quality. Quality filtering happens later through monthly performance review — creators who don't post or don't drive sales get marked Inactive or Ghost and eventually removed.
Why approve loose at the application gate:
- We need volume of real-world data on who posts and converts before we know what a "good" creator profile looks like for the brand
- The contract gates the cost — no one ships without a signed SignWell, so over-approval doesn't cost us product on people who never engage
- The activation funnel (% who join Discord, % who post, time-to-first-post) is the real filter, not the application
Your IFVA's job is to move applications through fast. Speed > selectivity at this stage.
Discord community management
The IFVA runs the Discord server (with the Mod's support on structure). This is where the community lives. If the Discord goes quiet for a week, the community dies.
Daily cadence (15–30 minutes):
- Welcome new members in #welcome (one personalized comment per member)
- Reply to DMs / @ mentions
- Drop one piece of content in #content-drops
- React in #my-content (✨ minimum)
Weekly cadence:
- Monday: weekly content theme prompt in #weekly-prompt
- Wednesday: spotlight top performer in #shoutouts
- Friday: weekly community wins in #announcements
Monthly cadence:
- Run a monthly contest (best post / most sales / most engaged / rising star)
- Winner perks: $200 gift card + featured post on the brand's social + bonus product
Voice in Discord:
- Warm, real, peer
- Short messages, emojis fine
- Never sales-y
- Talk to creators like the smart, busy people they are
Banned in Discord:
- Negativity about competitors
- Discussing pricing / deal hunting
- Off-topic political / divisive content
- Spam / unrelated self-promotion
If someone breaks rules: warn first, timeout second, escalate to Mod or founder for ban. Document everything.
Daily reports + monthly performance review
The IFVA submits a daily report at EOD. This is the IFVA's accountability mechanism and how I (or the brand owner) stays informed without having to ask.
The daily report covers:
- Apps reviewed, approved, rejected (with rates)
- Collabs invites sent
- New Collabs sign-ups
- New posts collected and uploaded to Drive
- Discord activity (welcomes, prompts, spotlights)
- Running KPIs: funnel volume, activation rate, time-to-first-post, content collected, affiliate revenue
- Anything brewing (slow Discord activity, low post rate, etc.)
- Tomorrow's plan (1 line)
The report should take less than 3 minutes for me to read. Quick scan, surface anything that needs attention, move on.
The monthly performance review (last day of every month, ~30 min):
The IFVA pulls Shopify Collabs data + tracking sheet and categorizes every creator:
- 🔥 Stars (top 10%) → thank-you DM + bonus $50 gift card + Discord spotlight. Long-term: invite to retainer.
- ✅ Active (next 30%) → continue, send follow-up product when next launch happens.
- 😐 Inactive (next 30%) → one DM check-in, no chase.
- ❌ Ghosts (bottom 30%) → one polite DM at day 30. If no response in 7 days, deactivate code, mark as ghost.
The monthly review is where quality filtering actually happens. The application gate doesn't filter quality; the data does.
Tools the IFVA uses
The role runs through this tool stack:
- Google Sheets — application tracking, status updates, performance log
- Shopify Collabs — invite flow, tracking link generation, free product fulfillment, payout management
- SignWell — contract templates and signature tracking
- Discord — community management (creator server), team coordination (internal team server)
- Email — direct creator communication (no IG/TikTok DMs since most brands don't have organic accounts set up for this)
- Shopify admin — fulfillment status, delivery tracking
- Google Drive — content collection and organization for paid amplification
Everything in this stack has free or low-cost tiers. The total tool spend for a brand running this role is under $200/month.
Training and onboarding — the 7-day arc
The full IFVA SOP includes a structured 7-day onboarding plan that takes a new hire from zero to fully operational by end of week 1. The arc:
- Day 1 — onboarding access (work email, all tools, Discord, SOP read-through)
- Day 2 — test the full flow end-to-end with a fake application
- Day 3 — tracking sheet setup + Collabs orientation
- Day 4 — first real applications start landing, IFVA reviews against rubric
- Day 5 — Discord cadence kicks in
- Day 6 — first daily reports start
- Day 7 — first weekly check-in with founder
By end of week 1, the IFVA should have: tested flow, reviewed first round of apps, sent first Collabs invites, joined the Creator Community Discord as admin, posted daily reports.
The full onboarding plan with day-by-day checklists, exact Discord prompts, sample emails, and the test-flow walkthrough is gatekept in the masterclass.
Why this SOP is gatekept
The full IFVA SOP — including the exact email scripts for each follow-up touchpoint, the Discord prompt library, the application review checklist, the contract template, the tracking sheet template, the daily report format, the monthly performance review template, and the 7-day onboarding plan — lives inside the RunItUp Masterclass.
This role is the most leverage you can give to your affiliate community system. The SOP took 18+ months of iteration across multiple brands to get right, and the masterclass version stays current as I run it across more brands.
Want the full IFVA SOP, the email script library, the Discord prompt library, and the 7-day onboarding plan? All inside the RunItUp Masterclass → Join here
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