Watch This Video BEFORE You Collab With Another Influencer

If you're an influencer or creator, you want to know how to land bigger and better brand deals and make more money for yourself. But what exactly is in those huge contracts? In this video, I'm going to walk you through exactly what is normal and what's weird and what you should 100% be negotiating in these collab contracts. I'm Brittany Ratelle, lawyer for creators, but to be clear, I'm an attorney. I'm not your attorney. This video is for informational purposes only and not official legal advice. So let's get into it. All right, first thing I want to start off with is just reaffirming that a contract is a legally binding document. It's really important that we understand and read through an entire contract, not only because sometimes the other side can be trying to slip weird phrases in, but frankly, they can just be sloppy or lazy in their drafting. I can't tell you how many times that I've pulled up a contract and there was simply language that was left over from another deal, or the contract was the wrong contract that was sent over. We always want to make sure what we're signing to is what was agreed upon in the email chain or the creative brief or in your DMs or wherever else you were putting together this deal. You certainly have the right to negotiate and slow down and redline or make changes to a contract that are going to be the win-win for you and the brand in the campaign. Let's go through my 6-part framework that you need to be checking and that you can change to make sure that this contract is going to be a good fit. This is especially important if one of these, budget, is really firm. I want to make sure that you have all the options on the table to put a successful deal that still preserves your value as a creator and as a partner in this transaction. Number 1, we want to talk about the scope of deliverables. These are the asks. So you want a detailed description of the content that's going to be created, how long, how often, the type, the format, the ratio. You also want to make sure you know the deadlines for content creation, submission, approval, and publication. A lot of agencies and brands are moving towards that. They will not allow and won't pay you if you publish or post something unless they approve it first of all. Now here's a point that you could negotiate. If they're not willing to budge on price, you can ask them to say, hey, can we shorten that deadline, or can we not have that pre-approval deadline? And that could be a win for the brand, right? You could be making the other side look good and also cutting down on your own work of having to edit We also want any specific guidelines or creative requirements. Depending on who you're working with, you want to know if you're expected to be on a meeting and how many people are going to be looking at this piece and then having to decide. And then how many rounds of revisions do they get? Make sure that you are not signing yourself up for an unlimited creative process where the client knows it when they see it. That's a recipe for disaster. It's really normal to have one round, maybe two rounds of revisions. Number 2, compensation. Obviously, this is a really important part to make sure you're clear in the contract. Make sure you understand how and when and what you're getting paid. Make sure you know if you're supposed to invoice the brand and what the payment terms are. If it's net 90, meaning you will not get paid until 90 days after you invoice them, that's a really long time. Celebrity marriages have began and ended faster than 90 days. For most of my clients, I cross out net 90 and I change it to net 60 or even net 30. Also make sure that you specify any late penalties or fees. If it's a big check, especially if it's an overseas company and you're worried that they could ghost you and go dark, put that late fee in there and protect yourself, especially if it's a larger deal or integration. If involves a lot of production, like you're going to have to invest and hire people or have props or scenery or there's travel involved or something else, make sure you're negotiating for yourself and get that initial payment to lock your date in the calendar and to protect yourself in case the brand cancels. Number 3, content ownership. Really important to understand who owns the content. The default is usually the creator or the influencer owns intellectual property. However, if they want to buy it out, make sure they're paying and paying big, okay? It's a lot more normal to have some sort of licensing scheme. Also look at archive rights. I've seen a lot of weird clauses and contracts where they're requiring for you to keep something up for a year or for forever. Don't put yourself in that position. I like a much shorter term of 90 days, and you might want to keep that content up. There might be no reason for you to take it down, but I want you to have that option. Also make sure that there's very specific language saying there's separate intellectual property rights. You probably are only getting a little license to use the brand name and maybe some copyright or trademark materials for a certain time. Make sure that's a two-way street and the brand is getting the same thing. You don't want your name and image and likeness and your rights of publicity showing up and endorsing a whole bunch of goods and services that was not part of your original deal. Number 4, you want to talk about usage rights and licensing. This is closely related to IP rights. Say the brand wants to own something, or you're not willing to negotiate on that, but you maybe are willing to negotiate on usage rights and licensing. This should definitely be something that you are charging for in addition to your base fee. Think about the value that's being created for the brand. What would they pay if they went to an advertising agency, right? The creative, the model, the talent, the music, the production, had to rent a set and hair and costume and makeup. Think about all of that. You are doing all of that for a brand and you're probably doing it at a bargain. Make sure you up that rate and really show the value of what you're offering. And then whitelisting and ad access. If this is something you offer or willing to offer, make sure that you're charging for it. And also note that as I've been working with my client, a lot of them have seen a dip in their engagement if they do whitelisting. Be careful and think about that. Number 5, exclusivity. Is there any expectation of exclusivity? How soon can you post again about a competitor or whether it's a specific brand or product or service or it's like the whole store. When I'm representing creatives, we are trying to narrow exclusivity. If they just say, hey, don't list any competitors, don't accept that garbage. That's too open-ended, and you don't know what competitor is. They might come back and be like, oh, that's not okay, and you're in breach of contract. Make them list out the competitors, or even better, list out the actual products, right? If you are talking about a certain iced tea, let them know what are the other drinks or beverages that I can't be talking about and for how long. And if they are asking for a lot of exclusivity, then make sure they're paying for that. The last lever is working together, and this is a really important because it's about a lot of that time and effort that you're putting into and expecting on the other side. So again, we want to be talking about approval timeline. How long do they have to sit on approval? How many rounds of revision do they get? Are there talking points or no talking points? If there's a rush fee, if this is going to be faster than you're expected to, make sure you're getting compensation for that. And then are there reporting and analytics? If this person wants to look good for their boss, make sure you understand, do they want a report? Do they want screenshots? Do they want you to use third-party software? I want to briefly review, okay, scope of work and deliverables. Compensation, that content ownership, usage rights and licensing, exclusivity, and then working together. There's a lot of other provisions and kind of fine print and legalese that also be included in the contract, and these are usually less likely to be negotiated. These are like the terms and conditions that you usually see in smaller print that are at the back. But I do want to point out something. It is really important for you to make sure that the parties are identified correctly. This is usually at the top of the agreement and where you sign. If you have set up an LLC or a business entity or a loan-out company, make sure this contract is in that name and not your name personally. The other thing is make sure you're checking for indemnification for a couple different things. Indemnification is a really obtuse legal term, and it basically means if something goes wrong, who's paying? You do not want to be paying. The brand does something really awful, like their product explodes and hurts someone, or say that they have a trademark issue and they told you to talk about this trademark brand. This is a real scenario that happened to Molly Sims, a beauty influencer. She ran a campaign and talked about this brow booster, and then the brow booster company, Rodan and Fields, got named in a lawsuit because they were accused of using Brow Booster that someone else used that name, and the judge did not dismiss her, at least not for a while. She had to pay a lot of legal fees to be involved because she did not have a clause like this in the contract that said, hey, by the way, if you do anything wrong in terms of intellectual property, you are covering that and you're covering my legal fees. There's a few other things that you should have in your agreement. If you are wanting to have your own really legit attorney-drafted agreement that has all that legalese that protects you, make sure you check my influencer collab at creativecontracts.co. That's like a paint-by-numbers where you can fill out the fields and make sure it's customized and personalized to you and ready to go. I'm attorney for creators Brittany Ratelle, and I'm so glad that you're here. 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