Sponsor Magnet · 2026-06-01 · 21 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
40 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
This episode is a deliberately hyperbolic but instructive catalogue of the worst practices creators engage in when pursuing sponsorships. The host walks through 31 specific missteps - organized from pitch through post-campaign - that tank brand relationships and ROI. Early mistakes include mass-emailing identical pitches via AI tools without research, spamming multiple decision-makers, and accepting deals that don't fit the audience. During negotiation, creators pull unrealistic numbers out of thin air, make the process adversarial, or agree to everything then claim amnesia. Execution errors compound: skipping the creative brief, producing something different than approved, missing deadlines, delivering technically unusable files, and posting sponsorships in controversial content. Post-publication, creators ghost brands mid-revision, post at terrible times without tracking links or promo codes, ignore comment questions, and ultimately never submit reports or follow up for future work. The host also promotes Wizards Guild, a sponsorship coaching program that charges a flat fee rather than taking cuts, positioning itself as more objective than traditional agent models.
Brands immediately recognize the impersonal, generic approach and often won't even open it. It signals you don't actually know or care about their business, and multiple recipients flag it as spam or forward it as a joke.
Because if you don't understand whether they want awareness, conversions, leads, or trial signups, you can't deliver content that actually serves their objective, leading to poor ROI and them never hiring you again.
The content gets half or a third of the normal engagement, tanking the brand's ROI and making them regret the partnership - even though they won't hire you again specifically because of it.
Contracts must be reviewed and legally signed; an email thread offers no legal protection to either party and brands will insist on proper documentation, and ghosting it creates legal and professional liability.
Reports need to arrive while your brand contact is being evaluated by their superiors (typically within days or weeks), not months later - by then they've already been judged and may have lost a promotion or raise they could have won with your metrics.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode delivers substantial, actionable insights about what damages creator-brand relationships, with 31 distinct failure modes that reveal real operational mistakes. However, the format is repetitive and padded with rhetorical flourishes that reduce density - much time is spent on exaggerated tone-setting rather than explaining root causes or second-order effects. The substance is there but could be delivered more densely.
The first way is that you're going to pitch this brand but you're not just going to pitch that one brand...I'm going to copy and paste and hit send on this email the same pitch to 100 different brands.
Fifth way is that during the negotiation, we don't ask them at all about what their goals are for the campaign...I'm not asking them if they want to drive awareness, if they want to repurpose my content organically for their channels, maybe for paid advertising.
The core insight - that creators damage brand relationships through negligence, entitlement, and poor communication - is valuable but not novel; these are fairly standard partnership failures visible across creator and consultant communities. The format of 31 failure modes is a structured delivery mechanism rather than original thinking. The host's specific framing (from the brand's perspective, using sarcasm) adds some voice but the underlying problems are industry-known.
You're going to pitch this brand but you're not just going to pitch that one brand...I'm going to copy and paste and hit send on this email the same pitch to 100 different brands.
They asked for it in landscape, but you delivered it in portrait. They asked for it in 4K and you delivered it in 1080p.
This is a solo host episode with no guest. The host appears to be coaching creators on sponsorship deals but provides no credentials, no reference to personal experience executing these partnerships at scale, and no demonstrated authority beyond observational commentary. No guest caliber applies here.
If you're listening to this and you're like, you know, I would like brands to not hate my guts...Then you should apply to our sponsorship coaching program, Wizards Guild.
The episode provides some specific examples of execution failures (wrong file formats, missing promo codes, late reports) but lacks concrete metrics, real case studies, or named brands/creators demonstrating these problems. No dollar figures, timelines, or measurable outcomes are given beyond generic references to '$10,000, $15,000' deals. The advice is grounded in plausible scenarios but not evidence-backed.
They asked for it in landscape, but you delivered it in portrait. They asked for it in 4K and you delivered it in 1080p.
You send back a number that has zero grounding in reality. You're going to say, you know what? This is going to be $50,000
This is a monologue with no conversational dynamics, follow-ups, or intellectual push-back. The host delivers 31 points in a rhetorical voice without pausing for nuance, counterargument, or deeper exploration of any single failure mode. There is no guest to challenge, no questions that probe root causes, and no vulnerability or uncertainty. The delivery is performative rather than investigative.
Here's how to make a brand absolutely hate your guts. I'm talking below you. I'm talking they've got a picture of your face in their office and they're just throwing darts at it all day long.
No, you know what, that just seems like so much work.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
31 ways to make a brand absolutely hate your guts…and how to avoid every single one of them. Including: Why ignoring a brand's goals during negotiation kills your chances at repeat deals The production and revision mistakes that make your contact look terrible to their boss Post-campaign reporting errors that cost your contact their promotion Why ghosting after the deal is the fastest way to end a long-term brand relationship Grab my book, Sponsor Magnet, to learn how to transform your influence into income: Want one-on-one sponsorship coaching? Join Wizard's Guild: For collaborations or partnerships, shoot us a note: inquiries@creatorwizard.com
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Here's how to make a brand absolutely hate your guts. I'm talking below you. I'm talking they've got a picture of your face in their office and they're just throwing darts at it all day long. It's a competition who can get it right between the eyes.
The first way is that you're going to pitch this brand but you're not just going to pitch that one brand. You're going to decide, you know what? I need to be making some more money from my content. I'm getting all these views.
Why aren't brands reaching out to me? But you know what? Pitching a brand, that sounds like a lot of work. I love creating content but I don't want to pitch a brand.
What if they reject me? You know what I'm going to do? AI, AI is going to save the day. I'm going to draft an amazing pitch.
I'm going to draft an amazing click baby subject line that ensures that they open this email. But you know what? I'm going to copy and paste and hit send on this email the same pitch to 100 different brands. Actually, you know what?
Even that sounds like a lot of work. Let me get an agent, an AI agent, Claude, ChadGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, one of you do it. I'm too busy to do this, right? I'm just going to send out these pitches for sure.
Someone's going to hire me. The second way is you're not going to do any research on the brand. You know what? You don't care, right?
Because it's all about you. It's all about how many views you're getting, how many impressions, your engagement rate, your demographics. My audience, they love me. Of course, this brand wants to get in front of my audience.
Like, why wouldn't they? So I'm going to craft this pitch and I, you know what? I am going to make sure that this is a giant wall of text. It's going to be eight paragraphs long.
I'm not going to act even interested at all in their business objectives. I just want to get paid, remember? And there's not going to be any bullets for readability. And in fact, at the end of this pitch, I'm going to say, hey, would love to hop on a call.
You must have so much extra time in your calendar to get on phone calls with creators like me that you don't even know. Or maybe, maybe I could pick your brain. The third way is that you're not going to care at all who you send this pitch to, you know what? In fact, you're in a spam, the CEO, the CMO, the VP of marketing.
Let's just include all of them on the same email. And you know what, for good measure. Let's see, see info at brand.com, press at brand.
com. We just want to make sure that everyone sees this message and then when we follow up, right? Because we've got to follow up. We're going to say, just bringing this to the top of your inbox, just wanted to make sure that you saw this.
The fourth way is that you're going to agree to deals where you know for a fact that your audience is not going to be into this. They're not going to purchase the product, but you don't care because you need the money, right? You brand emails you, and I would love to collaborate with you. And you're just like, la la la la, right?
This is a big bag. I need this money, right? I'm going to do this integration. I'm going to talk about that brand.
It's their fault. It's their responsibility for not knowing that this is not a good fit. They reached out to me. I have no ownership here.
No responsibility to let them know that this is probably not going to go well. Fifth way is that during the negotiation, we don't ask them at all about what their goals are for the campaign. I mean, they're the marketers, right? They've got an agency.
They've got full-time people working on this. So why is it my responsibility to ask them about this kind of thing? No, they're flashing money in my face. Maybe they even gave me the brief.
No, this is not my job, right? I'm not asking them if they want to drive awareness, if they want to repurpose my content organically for their channels, maybe for paid advertising. I'm not asking them if they really want to drive conversions or leads or trial signups. No, I don't care at all about that.
I just care about the money. The sixth way is that when a brand asks you, so how much are you going to charge for this? Send us a quote. What's your rate for this going to be?
You send back a number that has zero grounding in reality. You're going to say, you know what? This is going to be $50,000 in when the brand says, oh, okay, that was a little bit more than we expected. Can you maybe break this down?
Nope, can't break it down for you. This is the number, take it or leave it. The seventh way is that you're going to make the entire negotiation process feel adversarial. Anytime they ask you for any sort of compromise, any sort of concession, hey, can we do this instead of this, can we take this out of it?
Maybe we could do this, you just say, you know what? No, I'm not going to do that, right? Even if they're showing goodwill, no, you're going to make your brand contact. The person that is negotiating with you, you're going to make them look like an absolute idiot, right?
You're going to make them look terrible to their boss. You're going to make them look terrible to their client. They went to bat for you internally and said, you know, Justin is going to be a great fit for this campaign. But now they got to go back to that person and said, and say, you know what, he's being an absolute nightmare.
And of course, they're going to hire you, right? They've got to. The eighth way is that actually, you're going to agree to everything, right? You're going to say, yeah, of course I can do that.
For sure, oh, you want me to fly to the moon and back for $2,000? Yeah, for sure I could do that. No problem. And then you get into the execution phase and you just pretend that that never happened.
Well, what are you talking about? I must have blacked out there, I have amnesia. I never agreed to that. Just a quick interjection here.
If you're listening to this and you're like, you know, I would like brands to not hate my guts. You know, when my email hits their inbox, I would love for them to be excited, right? Take those darts out of my face on their wall in their office. Then you should apply to our sponsorship coaching program, Wizards Guild.
We have a very unique model in that we do not take a cut of your deals. So kind of the traditional way to work with an agent or a manager, I was like, they can't kind of handle all the negotiation stuff. And then you give them a cut, you know, 20, 25%, some podcasters that I know are in networks that take up to 50% of their ad reads revenue, which is crazy. And so we have a different model, which is that we take a 0% cut.
We have just a philosophical line that we do not believe. It makes financial sense. We cannot be objective if we are motivated by the cut that we're making of the deal. And so we need to be able to equally say to you, hey, that deal really sucks.
You should not take that deal. And so it's basically a flat fee for the year for us to be in your corner with your pitches, with your pricing of brand emails you. And you don't know how much to charge, put packages together for the proposals, how to deal with tricky situations with brands. They say something to you and you don't know what to say back to them.
This is how we'll support you in the program. So you can check out Wizards Guild.com or check the link below. The ninth way is to completely ignore all of the onboarding steps that are required to be a partner of theirs.
The vendor paperwork, oh, you got to get you set up in the system. No, you know what, that just seems like so much work. I really don't want to do that. No, I actually can't send you an invoice.
No, I actually can't send you my tax form, my W9. I can't do that. I can't tell you why I can't do that. But you know what, I'm just going to kick the can down the road.
I'm going to pretend like I never saw that email, even though you sent it to me a couple of times. No, I just, I can't see what? What vendor paperwork? The tenth way is to just ghost the contract entirely, right?
You think, you know what, I don't have a lawyer. Aren't lawyers expensive? Yeah, they probably are. And you know what, this deal isn't that large.
So I'll waste all my profit if I hire a lawyer to review this agreement. So you know what, I'm just going to pretend like they never sent this, like we'll just do the deal. Or better yet, maybe we don't even need to sign a contract. We'll just use this DM thread or this email thread as proof of the collaboration.
I will just pretend that they never sent me the contract. That's fine. The eleventh way is just skip the concept phase and go right into production, right? You sign the deal and you're like, okay, great.
They trust me, right? They must want it to be super organic and authentic, right? Why else would they have hired me? If not for my creative genius.
So I don't even need to talk to them now after this contract is signed. I'm just going to go and shoot this a couple hours later. Maybe tomorrow, I'm going to send the content to them and they're going to be just absolutely thrilled with this. There's going to be no revisions, no feedback that they give me.
I mean, again, I'm brilliant, I'm a genius. So why wouldn't they be super thrilled with me just taking this initiative? The twelfth way is that you're just going to ignore the creative brief. You're going to go completely off script.
There's all sorts of like key messages that they want you to hit in there, right? Do's and don'ts, make sure you don't say this. Make sure not to mention this competitor. Make sure you properly pronounce the name of the brand or the product.
No, you don't need any of that information. No, I mean, that's just like, that's going to stifle your creative inspiration, right? So why would I need to look at the creative brief? Now, I'll just look at the creative brief when it comes time to posting and I need to know which hashtags to use.
Number 13, okay, fine, you'll send a concept. But then, you know what, you're going to produce something completely different. You agreed on that. But when you sat down to shoot this, when you sat down to produce this, you decided, you know what, this just isn't going to work.
I have a better idea. And let me just do that. I'm going to send it to them. Of course, they're going to understand, I'll explain it to them, that I just wasn't feeling in the mood, this didn't feel right.
I know I agreed to that. I know you got your entire department to agree to it. I know you got your legal team to bless it. But again, you understand, right?
I'm shooting this and it just doesn't feel right. The vibes are off. So I did something better. What do you think?
The 14th way is to just completely miss the deadline that you're required to submit the draft of the content for them to review. I mean, look at the sun. The sun is shining. It's beautiful out, birds are chirping.
I think I should go to the beach. I think I should go out of town. You know what, there's some really good deals on last minute airfare and hotels. The brand will just have to deal with it, right?
Because life is more important than these business commitments that I've made. The 15th way is that when you finally do turn it in, you deliver something that's technically unusable, right? They asked for it in landscape, but you delivered it in portrait. They asked for it in 4K and you delivered it in 1080p.
No big deal. The 16th way is that you are going to put this sponsorship in the most controversial piece of content that you've created in three years. There's something crazy happening in the world. Someone was talking trash about this person and oh my gosh, I am going to put this brand's integration into that particular podcast episode into that particular YouTube integration, into that newsletter where I'm talking trash about this other brand over here.
I mean, the brand's just got to deal with it. I mean, this piece of content is going to get so many views. It's going to get so many opens and clicks. The brand is just going to be thrilled having their integration next to this hyperbolic piece of content.
Number 17 is that you're going to make your brand contacts life absolutely miserable. Every time they email you for a small clarification about something, you're going to wait four days to get back to them. Four days. I mean, you're busy.
You're creating content, right? They're going to have to wait. You're still on vacation, right? You can't open your work email on vacation.
No, no, that's not reasonable. Now, the 18th way is that you're going to treat every piece of feedback that they give you about the drafts that you've sent them. You're going to take it as a personal attack. You're going to take it as a violation of your creative genius.
How dare they? You're the one who built this platform. Are they the ones posting day in and day out on these platforms? No, they're not.
Who did they think they are? The 19th way is that when you do resubmit the content, incorporating the revisions that they requested, the content doesn't actually address it. No, no, no, they asked you for eight changes, and you only did three. And you don't even address it.
And when they bring that up, they say, hey, this is good. It's progress. We're getting closer. But you didn't address this, this, this.
And then again, you don't email them for four days. And then when you do respond, you say, you know what? I actually don't think I want to do that. I think that's a bad idea.
And I'm not going to give you any ways to go back to your superiors and justify or explain why I don't want to make those revisions. You're just going to have to deal with it. The 20th way is that you're going to go completely dark, completely silent. You're going to ghost them when they send you these revision notes.
You're just going to be like, you know what? This is a signal that the brand doesn't value me. I thought that they value me, but they don't. So I'm just not going to respond.
That seems like the most professional way to handle this. The 21st way is that you are going to post this content at the worst possible time. You know that you get the most engagement during the week days at, let's say, 12 p.m.
but you know what you're going to do for this brand in particular. You're going to post it on Sunday night at midnight because you know, you're a bit scared about the sponsorship. You're worried how people are going to react. They're going to call you a sellout.
So you know what? I'm going to ensure that the fewest amount of people see this possible. And again, the brand's not going to care about this, right? They're just thrilled that it's live.
They're thrilled that they get to partner with me. It doesn't matter at all that this is going to get a half or third of the engagement that it normally should. The 22nd way is that you're going to use the wrong tracking link, right? When this goes live, there's not going to have the little HTTPS colon, forward slash, forward slash WW.
No, the hyperlink is not even clickable in the description box or the show notes of this YouTube video of the podcast. No, and you know what? You're not going to include the link in your bio either. You're not going to turn on the many chat automations sending people the tracking link or maybe actually you use the wrong tracking link.
You use the one from four months ago in an email thread that you found and they actually sent you an updated one, right? But okay, it doesn't matter. It's still going to the same place, still going to the brand's website. So why does it even matter that it's not the right tracking link?
The 23rd way is that you're not even going to include the promo code just in 20 for 20% off your first purchase, right? Why does that matter? It's not like having an incentive, right? Having some sort of immediate thing that they can take action on will ensure that the brand gets a return on this investment where these people will actually go to the brand's website and sign up for it or purchase the item, right?
Using this limited time exclusive promo code that's only available for you, right? It's not like that's a big deal or anything. Let's just not include that. It doesn't matter.
The 24th way is that you're going to post the content. You're going to publish it. You're going to activate on this campaign and then you're going to go completely dark, right? You're not going to respond with brand emails you for a clarification.
They say, hey, you forgot the promo code. You forgot the tracking link. You don't respond. Remember, you put your phone on D&D.
You went to the beach. You took the flight out of town and you can't be bothered to check your email even though you made a material error or a mission in the way in which you published this content or activated it. Now, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
You just went dark. You just went dark. You can't be bothered. The 25th way is that there's all these people in the comments section asking questions about the brand, asking questions about the product, easy questions, by the way, not complicated ones, right?
And you could just go in there. Literally, it would probably take you two minutes to go in there and to respond to the 10 people who were, hey, is this going to work for me? Right? I tried it six months ago and it didn't really work for me.
But I'm curious. It seems like you're getting great results from it. Can you clarify this for me? But no, we're not going to respond or engage with any of those comments because, again, we're on the plane.
We're on the beach. We can't be bothered, right? And remember, the brand is refreshing the comment section. They're seeing all these very simple questions about their product or their tool that if you went in there and answered them, you probably could actually get some conversions, make this a better ROI for the brand.
But no, no, no, no, no, no, definitely not. We're not going to respond to these. Because again, if the brand jumped in and answered those, it would probably be weird. No, this is coming from you.
This is your sponsorship. But we're not going to respond to any of those comments. Maybe, let's come back seven days later, seven days later, and respond to these comments. And for sure, those people are going to convert for sure.
The 26th way, we're going to post something super, super controversial the same day that we do this sponsorship. You put out a YouTube integration, but then you're talking crazy over here on X or over here on threads. Because they're separate platforms, right? And again, I need to be able to express myself creatively, right?
No matter that all these people who are super pissed off about these controversial things that you're saying are flooding the brand's customer service lines. They're going over to the brand's post on social media and saying, how dare you partner with Justin? Is this the type of people that you want representing your company? Doesn't matter, right?
They should have tough skin. I mean, they partnered with you. They partnered with you. So they should know that that comes with the territory.
And again, I didn't even talk crazy on YouTube. I'm just talking crazy over here, which is not a platform that they hired me on. No, no, no, no, they just got to deal with it. The 27th way is that we are not going to send a post campaign report.
No, the brand all they asked for was a screenshot of my analytics, a screenshot of the demographics of the people who saw this content. That's all they're asking for. And I'm going to send them an invoice and I'm going to get paid. I could not be bothered to use one tiny extra brain cell thinking about this partnership after this money hits my bank account.
I can't be bothered. Even I mean, it's like $10,000, $15,000. I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered.
I just can't. The 28th way, actually, you know what? Maybe you decide that you will send a report, but it's three months late. Well, past the window that this, that your brand contact is being evaluated by their superiors.
They have to put together their own internal reporting, talking about how this campaign went. It was their decision to hire you. And now they have to stand up in front of the all-hands marketing meeting and justify. They say, hey, we paid this person $10,000.
And here's how it went. But guess what? You haven't delivered your report to them yet. You're trying to send it to them weeks, maybe months later, after they have already been judged.
Maybe they've already been passed up for that promotion that they really wanted, that raise, and your report would have been the ticket for them to look amazing internally. But nope. Nope, your on vacation can't be bothered. That report will get to them when it gets to them.
The 29th way is that you cherry pick only the flattering metrics, right? And you just sweep the ugly ones under the rug. You know that this piece of content got half the views, half the impressions, half the engagement that it normally does, but don't tell the brand. They're not even gonna know if you don't tell them.
No, right, they don't even know that. Let's just have, you know, starry eyed vision about the whole thing. Let's paint it in the most flattering light possible so that they wanna hire you again, right? So that you look good, right?
You don't, don't discuss the elephant in the room. No, don't even talk about that. They're not gonna know, right? It's not like they're doing their own, you know, tire kicking and sleuthing.
And it's not like they understand this stuff. No, no. The 30th way actually is that when you do turn in this report, you just blame the brand for everything that went wrong. You take no responsibility at all.
You say, well, you know what, you didn't give me enough time to produce this asset or the product sucks, right? I used it and initially I thought it was good, but now I realize it actually sucks. And you know what, all these things that, you know, people are saying in the comment section, it's actually true, the product does suck and that's your fault, right? This is not my fault at all.
I'm not culpable in the least. And the 31st way to make a brand just kind of taste of vomit in the back of their throat whenever they think of you is just never following up after that initial engagement, right? They actually may have been excited about pursuing an additional collaboration with you, but you just completely go sit them, right? Here they were.
They thought that they were building this awesome relationship with you. They invested a ton of internal capital going to bat for you internally, talking to their superiors, to, you know, to their client, if it's an agency talking about how amazing you are and that you should invest. Even though this greater is charging a lot of money, we should invest in them because I see there being a long-term relationship here, but no, you couldn't be bothered. You got the check, you ran off into the sunset and you literally never talked to the brand again, right?
You hit it and you quit it. Like, of course, right? Why would I wanna do that? Why would I, I just wanna be out there finding the next brand to pay me.
I don't wanna establish a great, deep, long-lasting relationship with a brand that truly values me. No, they paid me and I'm gone. You know what the funny thing about all this is, is that I almost made a brand actually hate me on a recent trip I went on with them. So if you wanna hear about what happened, make sure to check out this episode right here.
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