My Three-Question Gut Check Before I Ever Sign a Brand Deal
Photo: Robert Yarnall Richie, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Last spring, I turned down a five-figure offer from a meal kit company. It was the biggest number that had ever landed in my inbox, and I said no in under an hour. A friend thought I'd lost my mind. But six months later, when I announced a partnership with a small Midwest-based kitchenware brand I'd actually been using since college, my comments section lit up with people saying they bought the skillet because they trusted me.
That's the whole game, honestly. Trust is the only currency a creator actually owns. And every lazy partnership spends it a little.
The Three Questions I Ask Before Anything Else
After four years and more than a hundred inbound offers, I've boiled my vetting process down to three questions. If the answer to any of them is a shrug, it's a no.
One: Would I buy this with my own money? Not "would I use it if it were free" — would I actually swipe my card. I keep a running note on my phone of products I've organically purchased, and when a brand reaches out, I check if they're on the list. My longest-running partnership, with a stationery company out of Portland, started because I tagged them in a story unprompted. They saw it and asked. That's the dream pipeline.
Two: Could I talk about this at dinner with my mom? Sounds silly, but it filters out the sketchy stuff fast — the crypto-adjacent apps, the miracle supplements, the gambling sponsorships dressed up as "fantasy sports." My audience skews heavily twenty-something American, the same demographic these offers target hardest, and I refuse to be the reason someone's little brother downloads a betting app.
Three: Does this brand talk about me like a person or a placement? I read the initial outreach email closely. If it's clearly a mail-merge blast — "Hey Influencer!" — I already know the campaign will treat me like a billboard. The brands I've built real relationships with (a coffee roaster in Austin, a indie fashion label based in Brooklyn) all started with someone on their team who clearly watched my content and referenced something specific I'd made.
The Red Flags That Cost Me Money to Learn
Some of these I learned the hard way, which means you get to learn them for free.
Unlimited revisions on "creative direction." One contract I signed early on gave the brand final approval over my caption, my footage, and my posting time. I spent eleven hours on a single Instagram reel for a payout that worked out to less than minimum wage. Now I cap revisions at two in every contract.
"We'll send payment net-90." Net-90 means they pay you ninety days after they decide to start counting. I've had a net-90 clause stretch to five months. My rule now: net-30 or I add a late fee, and I use a simple invoice system through my LLC so everything's documented.
Exclusivity that's secretly forever. Read the exclusivity clause twice. I once had a skincare contract that prohibited me from working with "any brand in the beauty vertical" — which, for someone whose entire content is beauty, was basically a non-compete on my own career. We negotiated it down to sixty days and a specific product category.
The Collabs That Flopped (and What They Taught Me)
I did one partnership with a phone accessory brand where I'd never touched the product before the campaign. The video did fine numbers, but the comments were brutal — people could smell that I didn't use the thing. I lost more in audience goodwill than I made in the fee. Now, if a product doesn't survive a two-week real-world test in my actual life, I don't post it, even if the contract's signed. (Yes, I've had to return money. Worth it.)
The flip side: my best-performing sponsored post ever was for a mattress company, of all things. I'd genuinely slept on their mattress for three months before they ever reached out, and my DMs were already full of people asking about it. When the partnership finally happened, it didn't feel like an ad because, to me, it wasn't one.
Saying No Is a Branding Strategy
Here's the thing nobody tells you when you're starting out: your no's are public whether you announce them or not. Your audience notices the pattern of what you promote. Every decline is a deposit into the trust account; every lazy yes is a withdrawal.
I'm not precious about it — I say yes to plenty, including deals that pay less than my rate because I believe in the product. But I've stopped pretending a paycheck and a partnership are the same thing. One is money. The other is your reputation, compounding.
If you're a creator staring down an offer right now, run it through my three questions. And if it fails? Decline gracefully, keep the door open, and go make something you actually care about. The right brands notice that kind of thing.
