Picture this: someone at a brand's office has taped your headshot to their wall. It's a competition. Who can land it right between the eyes.
You did that. Here's how.
The Pitch Phase (Ways 1-7)
1. Send the same AI-generated pitch to 100 brands without changing a single word. You need money. Pitching sounds like work. AI will save the day — one pitch, one click, a hundred sends. Maybe you get one response where someone says "wrong brand, you addressed this to our competitor." That tracks.
2. Make it entirely about yourself. Giant wall of text. Eight paragraphs. Your views. Your impressions. Your engagement rate. Your demographics. Your audience loves you, so obviously this brand should too. No bullets. No mention of their business. And definitely end with "would love to pick your brain sometime."
3. CC the CEO, CMO, VP of Marketing, info@, and press@ on the same email. You want to make sure everyone sees this. Cover your bases. And when you follow up: "Just bringing this to the top of your inbox." Perfection.
4. Agree to deals your audience will never care about. A brand emails you. Big bag. You need it. The fact that this product has nothing to do with your content, your audience would never buy it, and you kind of know this — not your problem. They reached out. Their fault.
5. Don't ask about their campaign goals. Not once. They're the marketers. They've got agencies. Full-time staff. Why is it your job to ask whether they want awareness, repurposing rights, or actual conversions? Just tell them your number. They'll figure it out.
6. Quote a price with zero grounding in reality and refuse to explain it. $50,000. And when they ask for a breakdown: "This is the number. Take it or leave it."
7. Make every concession feel like a war crime. They ask if you can swap a deliverable. You say no. They show goodwill. You say no. Your contact went to bat for you internally. Now they have to go back and explain why you're being a nightmare. They are definitely going to recommend you again.
The Contract and Concept Phase (Ways 8-13)
8. Agree to everything. Deliver nothing. "Can you fly to the moon and back for $2,000?" Sure. Of course. Absolutely. Then in the execution phase: "I have no memory of that conversation."
9. Ghost the vendor paperwork. W9? Invoice requirements? System setup? Can't see those emails. Never received them. The can will roll down the road until someone else's problem.
10. Don't sign the contract — or just ignore that one was sent. Lawyers are expensive. This deal isn't that big. We'll just use this email thread as our agreement. What could go wrong?
11. Skip the concept phase and go straight to production. They signed the contract. They trust you. Your creative genius doesn't need their input. You'll shoot it tomorrow, send it over, and they'll be absolutely thrilled with zero revisions requested.
12. Ignore the creative brief. The dos and don'ts. The key messages. The brand name pronunciation. The competitor they asked you not to mention. All of that is stifling your creative vision. You can glance at the brief right before you post to grab the hashtags.
13. Send the approved concept, produce something completely different. You sat down to shoot it and it just didn't feel right. The vibes were off. You had a better idea. Yes, you agreed to the other approach. Yes, they got their legal team to bless it. But you did something better, so they'll understand.
The Execution Phase (Ways 14-19)
14. Miss the draft deadline. The sun is shining. There are last-minute flights available. The brand will deal with it. Life is more important than business commitments you made in writing.
15. Deliver something technically unusable. They asked for landscape. You sent portrait. They asked for 4K. You sent 1080p. Same thing basically.
16. Place the integration in your most controversial piece of content in three years. There's something crazy happening in the world. Your hottest take is ready. This episode is going to get so many views. The brand will be thrilled having their integration right next to it.
17. Take four days to respond to every email. They asked a small clarifying question. You're creating content. They'll wait.
18. Treat every piece of feedback as a personal attack on your artistry. How dare they suggest revisions? You built this platform. Who do they think they are?
19. Resubmit without addressing half the requested changes. They asked for eight revisions. You did three. When they point this out, you wait four days and tell them you don't think those other changes are a good idea — without giving them anything to take back to their superiors to explain your reasoning.
The Publishing Phase (Ways 20-26)
20. Go completely dark after the revision notes arrive. This is a signal that the brand doesn't value you. The most professional response is to stop responding entirely.
21. Publish at the worst possible time for engagement. Your audience is most active weekdays at noon. You'll post Sunday at midnight because you're nervous about people calling you a sellout. The brand definitely won't notice the integration got half its normal engagement.
22. Use the wrong tracking link. Or no link at all. The URL doesn't have the HTTPS prefix so it's not clickable. Or you used an old link from four months ago. Or you just left it out. It all goes to the brand's website eventually, so who cares.
23. Forget the promo code. "Just20" for 20% off. A clear call to action that would actually drive conversions and give the brand measurable ROI. Skip it. Whatever.
24. Go dark again after publishing. The brand emails asking about the missing promo code. You're at the beach. DND on. Can't be bothered.
25. Let the comments pile up unanswered. There are ten people in the comment section asking simple questions about the brand's product. You could answer them in two minutes and probably drive actual conversions. The brand is refreshing that comment section. But you're on a plane. Maybe you'll come back in seven days. Those people will definitely still be ready to buy.
26. Post something wildly controversial on another platform the same day. It's a separate platform. They hired you on YouTube, not X. The fact that their customer service is now flooded with people asking "how dare you partner with this person" — that's their problem. They should have tough skin.
The Wrap-Up Phase (Ways 27-31)
27. Don't send a post-campaign report. They asked for a screenshot of your analytics. You send that, invoice them, and that's the end of your relationship with this money. You cannot be bothered to use one extra brain cell once that $10,000 hits your account.
28. Send the report three months late. Your brand contact has already had to stand up in their all-hands marketing meeting and justify spending $10,000 on you. They've already been passed up for the promotion that report would have helped them get. When your report finally arrives, it's too late to matter to anyone.
29. Cherry-pick only the flattering metrics. The content got half your usual views and engagement? Don't tell them that. Paint it in the most flattering light. They won't do their own research. They definitely won't notice.
30. Blame the brand for everything that went wrong. The product sucks. They didn't give you enough time. The comments saying the product doesn't work — all true. All their fault. You have zero culpability.
31. Ghost them after the deal closes and never follow up. They went to bat for you internally. They told their superiors you were worth the investment and that there was a long-term relationship here. You got the check and you ran. Why would you want to build a deep, lasting relationship with a brand that values you? No. On to the next one.
Here's the thing about all of this: it's funny until you realize how many creators are doing at least five of these things right now without knowing it.
The difference between a creator with a one-time deal and a creator with a recurring partnership comes down to exactly these 31 things. Not your follower count. Not your engagement rate. How you behave across every step of the process.
If you want brands to feel the opposite way — if you want your name in their inbox to make them genuinely excited — that's exactly what Wizard's Guild is built to help you do. And the full framework for every step of the sponsorship process is in Sponsor Magnet.
What's the one thing on this list you're secretly guilty of?
