How to Handle Brand Deal Income Questions

Plenty has been written about what to ask a brand. Much less about brand deal income questions from the other direction: the awkward questions brands ask you, usually in the first two emails, where a fast answer costs money and a slow one costs nothing.

This page is about those, and about sorting a real approach from the rest before you spend an hour on it.

What to take away

Sorting the inbox

A real approach should give you four things to check: an identifiable brand or agency, a specific description of the work, a timeline, and compensation terms or an invitation to discuss the fee.

What fails the check: mass mail with your name in the wrong case. An offer of a discount code as though it were payment. An ambassador program with no fee attached. A request for a call before anyone will describe the work. Anything asking you to buy the product first and be reimbursed later.

None of these need a considered reply. A polite decline or nothing at all is the correct amount of effort.

For the ones that pass, reply the same day with the scoping questions and nothing else. Speed helps here, and it costs you nothing because you are not committing to a number.

"What are your rates?"

Asked first, almost always, and it is not a trap. They need to know whether to continue.

A single number closes the discussion, because you have priced a job neither of you has described. To open it, name what the price depends on and ask for those things: deliverables, where the work runs, how long, and exclusivity.

Add that you quote the components separately. You can usually shape something to a budget if they tell you the budget.

If they will not give a range, ask what they have spent on comparable work before. If they will not answer that either, they are collecting rate information rather than buying.

"Can you do it for the exposure, or for product?"

Sometimes reasonable, usually not, and the answer is the same either way: state what the work costs you and offer a version at their budget.

Product against a fee is fine as a bonus and poor as payment, because it does not cover production costs, an editor, or the tax that may still attach to it. Exposure is not payment at all when they are the ones asking for access to your audience.

The version worth offering: a smaller deliverable, a shorter license, no exclusivity, no amplification. That keeps your pricing intact and teaches the buyer what the components cost. Whatever you agree, record the arrangement, because goods received for work are not automatically outside the scope of your tax records.

"We will need full usage rights, is that fine?"

The most expensive question on this page, and the one most often answered with a yes in passing.

Full usage rights usually means every medium, everywhere, forever, with the right to edit. That is not a detail attached to a post. It is a separate product, and if it is included in a post fee you have sold a stock asset at post prices.

Answer with questions rather than a refusal: which media, which territories, for how long, and can you edit it. Then price the license as its own line. Long terms are perfectly saleable. They are just not free, and a brand asking for them is generally prepared to pay for them once someone itemises it.

"Can you guarantee the results?"

No, and saying so clearly is a professional answer rather than a weak one.

You can commit to what you control: the deliverables, the dates, the quality, the placement, and honest reporting afterwards. You cannot commit to what a recommendation system does or to what strangers buy.

Offer the first list, decline the second, and if they push, ask what number they are being held to internally. Sometimes the real problem is that someone above them needs a forecast, and there is a scoping answer to that which does not require you to promise anything.

Be careful about the softer version of this too, which is a fee partly contingent on performance. It transfers a risk you cannot manage onto you, and it makes your own deal measurement depend on data the brand controls.

"Do you actually have to say it is an ad?"

Yes. This is the one question on the page with a fixed answer.

A paid or incentivized relationship must be clear to the audience in the piece itself, so readers see it before they weigh the recommendation.

What exactly is required depends on where you and your audience are. The rules do get updated, so read the current source rather than a summary of it. For the United States the Federal Trade Commission publishes guidance written for creators.

Where a brand's own policy, a platform's rules and the law all apply, follow the strictest. The underlying text is the Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials, and it is worth reading once rather than relying on a summary of a summary.

A brand asking you to bury, delay or drop the disclosure has told you something about the whole relationship. Treat it as a signal, not as a negotiating point, and note that the request itself is often more revealing than the product.

Questions for whoever is not the brand

When an agency, a manager or a platform intermediary brings the deal, three questions save a great deal of trouble.

Ask these three questions:

None of these are rude. All of them are ordinary commercial questions, and the reaction to being asked is itself informative. The full list of what to establish before quoting sits in the brand deal income guide.

Questions worth asking when it is over

The third one gets honest answers surprisingly often, and the fourth is how a one off becomes a relationship.

Common questions

How quickly should I reply?

Same day for approaches that pass the sort, with questions rather than a price. Campaign timelines are usually tighter than they look and a fast, specific reply is a real advantage.

Should I put my rates on my site?

A simple starting list saves time and filters out approaches with no budget. Keep it to a few line items, mark it as a starting point, and expect rights and exclusivity to move it.

What if I get an approach in a category I have already blocked?

Say so and give the end date. Brands plan in advance, and the ones worth working with will often come back when the restriction lapses.

Is a bad approach worth replying to at all?

Only if it is a real organization being clumsy rather than a template. The mass mail is not a negotiation you are losing, it is not addressed to you in particular, and the errors that make early deals expensive are listed in brand deal mistakes.