I Turned Down My First Brand Deal

This was a hard post to write– because I really wanted this brand deal to work!

For 2026, one of my goals for Digital Mom business was to land my first brand deal. About a month ago I was super close to making that happen. But I ended up walking away.

I know— part of me couldn’t believe I was walking away either.

Let me tell you what happened.

I’ve been building a presence on Instagram for my Digital Mom brand. Its growing, slowly but surely. And I’m finding a really engaged audience there.

About a month ago a brand reached out interested in paying me to be a brand partner.

I was so excited.

I quickly got to work figuring out pricing and a deal structure that would make sense.

Because it’s hard to figure out what you’re worth. You don’t want to overstate and have them just pass. You also don’t want to undervalue yourself and set a bad precedent.

So I did my diligence.

• I researched the group that reached out initially to make sure they were legit.

• I studied brands like mine to see how they executed brand partnerships on various platforms

• I talked to brands like mine that I had built relationships with, asking for advice about pricing and deal structure.

• I asked my .ai friends—Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini— the same questions about pricing and deal structure

I really figured out my worth and my value. I also learned some things about brand dels that I want to share with you.

I learned that its good practice to structure a deal where there is a fee for the content you create and a separate fee for distribution. Within distribution there can can be organic and paid distribution. Organic is you posting or collaborating from your account or accounts with the brand. Paid is allowing them to use the creative as an ad elsewhere. Ideally once you publish, you provide them ad rights and access to the ad codes for a specific amount of time.

You’ll want to bundle creative executions, platforms and ad rights to create a package that makes a deal worth your time.

1. The request changed abruptly. They decided they didn’t actually need me to post the content to my account anymore, just provide the video including a disclaimer stating that I was a paid actor. This change in effect would make it so I would no longer have control of the asset and the ad rights access. If they were for some reason not legit they could do whatever they wanted with that video asset. Red Flag.

2. The payment platform looked sketchy. They wanted to pay me through a platform I had never heard of called WHOP. When I asked Reddit about WHOP, I did not like what I read. It said while the platform seemed legit, many scammers used it. Red Flag.

3. It wasn’t 100% clear why they wanted to work with me, specifically. In addition to not wanting me to post from my account, I also realized that I had been emailing with them from my personal gmail account which isn’t even attached to my brand’s accounts. So I could be anybody. Red Flag.

I talked it over on one of my Broad Collective Group Calls. This group never fails to empathize, support and give me honest feedback.

In the end, I decided to let this one go. There were just too many red flags.

Saying no was hard but, in the end I did gain from the experience. I walked away with a template for the next brand deal and the opportunity to share the experience with others who might need it soon or down the road.

Love,

Erin & Sarah

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