Being offered a brand deal worth $12,000 seems like a dream-come-true for a micro influencer, but everything is not always as it seems.. so let’s dive into it.
What could possibly make a small influencer turn down a brand deal worth $12,000?
A micro-influencer who, at the time, had fewer than 10,000 followers and had yet to accept an offer that big?
Well, let me walk you through a brand deal opportunity I had that never made it out of the negotiation stage. This is the first of what I hope becomes a series on breaking down offers I’ve received and said no to along my content creator journey.
Turning Down $12,000 in THIS ECONOMY?
If you prefer the video-version of this storytime, watch it below! Keep scrolling for the text-version!
Brand Deal Worth $12K?
$12,000 is undeniably a lot of money, especially for a smaller creator looking to establish themselves and make more consistent income in this space…
But what if I told you, instead of cash, this brand was offering $12,000 in gift cards over the course of a year?
Some of you might already be packing up, ready to leave, thinking, “Of course you said no. Other professionals don’t get paid in gift cards. I don’t pay my hairdresser, my doctor, my lawyer, etc., in gift cards.” Why should the expectation be any different for content creators or influencers? We have bills to pay too.
But on the other hand, some of you might be thinking, “Okay, yes, cash is king, but $12,000 in gift cards? That goes a long way.” For most of us, $1,000 a month (even in giftcards) is a shopping spree of our dreams.
The Tempting Offer
Out of the above two responses, I am usually a ‘take the cash, like I can’t eat a gift card’ type of person. But this offer had me seriously considering, and I urge you to ask what you would do.
This was $12,000 in gift cards to a grocery store.
In this economy, that sounds like a steal.
Or maybe you just have it a lot better than I do. But let’s be honest, it is an absolute privilege to even consider turning something like that down—a privilege that a lot of smaller creators don’t have.
Not having to pay for groceries for an entire year frees up a lot of your income. And grocery stores, at least most of the ones here, have so much more than food: cleaning supplies, beauty products, pharmacy items.
So all that being said, why did I say no?
Breaking Down the Offer
So a few years ago, I got an email about a potential brand partnership with a grocery store chain.
It would be a year-long ambassador program, offering a $1,000 gift card a month in exchange for one in-feed post and an accompanying three-slide story set.
To set the stage, I was still at my day job at this time, though I had just given my six-month notice, and I was really in the mindset of planning for the year ahead.
So, I was actually seriously considering this offer because the lift wasn’t that huge. It was an in-feed post in general, not necessarily a reel or a video; it could just be a photo or a carousel.
At this time too, my husband had recently quit his job to go back to school, so I was the sole income earner.
That means having groceries covered for 12 months would mean that I would only have to worry about making enough to cover rent and bills. We would be able to live pretty comfortably.
As my husband and I started to crunch the numbers, we got really excited and began fantasizing about how we would treat our families to some dinners and groceries of their own. Because $1,000 in groceries for a household of two, plus two cats, was kind of overkill.
The Negotiation
And so I let the brand know that while I didn’t normally do in-kind partnerships, I found the offer to be generous and was open to discussing further.
I had some follow-up questions, especially around usage rights and exclusivity.
Their Usage Expectations
They responded saying for usage, they wanted the rights to boost my content for the entire year, which already had me feeling kind of meh.
That is something I usually charge brands for, on top of the content creation itself.
The fact that they wanted to boost my content for an entire year without any further compensation made me uneasy. But that wasn’t even the biggest roadblock.
It was their expectations around exclusivity
Their Exclusivity Expectations
They didn’t want me to work with any other grocery retailers for an entire year.
On paper, that makes sense; a brand doesn’t want you doing sponsored content for them one day and for their direct competitor the next.
But again, exclusivity is something content creators should charge brands for. And I am much stricter with charging for exclusivity than I am with boosting because exclusivity terms have a direct impact on my potential earnings for the year.
Also, as an influencer who often works with hair and beauty brands who require me to call out where my audience can find their products, I was concerned that these exclusivity terms might conflict with future brand deals if, for example, SheaMoisture HairCare wanted me to tell my audience that their products could be found at Walmart.
So I asked the brand if…
a) any work with beauty brands that required retailer call-outs would count against their exclusivity terms
b) if it did violate their terms, did they have a budget for actual payment to cover my exclusivity rates,
or c) if they didn’t have a budget, would they be willing to exclude beauty from the exclusivity terms altogether.
I was honestly really hoping for c) because the grocery store leaned heavily towards groceries over beauty products, and their beauty section didn’t have options for textured hair, which is a big part of my content. My audience loves affordable hair care recommendations from me, and pretty much all of them were sold at competing drugstores and grocery retailers.
The Decision
The brand returned and confirmed that my examples would indeed violate their exclusivity terms, and they were not interested in removing beauty from the contract.
They asked how much exclusivity would cost for a 3-month trial period.
I went back to my books and calculated that I had made $8,000 from beauty brand partnerships in the previous three months. So, I quoted them $8,000 for how much I could potentially lose by accepting their offer.
The brand candidly admitted that the number was much higher than they anticipated.
A PR agency was handling the in-between of the negotiations, and they said they would try to nudge the brand to consider removing beauty from the exclusivity terms.
But alas, the brand stood firm, and so did I.
The Wrap-Up
In the end, it worked out because, over the course of the year, I actually signed about $20,000 worth of paid work with brands that I wouldn’t have been able to work with had I accepted the gift cards–Hair and beauty brands aligned with my content would have been off the table because of the grocery store agreement.
And in hindsight, it’s funny how our careers evolve.
While $12,000 in grocery store gift cards still sounds appealing, I don’t think I would entertain it for as long as I did, if that opportunity came up today.
My base rate now for the presented deliverables far exceeds $12,000, and something I hadn’t considered at the time was that if I’m getting gift cards as payment, I would have to declare that on my taxes, meaning the brand would absolutely come out on top.
It’s so crucial to ask the right questions as a creator and evaluate the big picture of how a brand deal can impact your future business.
Let me know if you like these brand deal story times. I have quite a few under my belt. If you want to learn more about contract terms and how to negotiate them, watch my next video.
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