Last week I asked you to write down the one outcome from your last brand deal you've never actually named in a pitch.
Some of you wrote back. A few sat with it longer than expected. One person told me she'd been in business for three years and had never put it into words.
That's not unusual. That's the criteria problem.
You're not overwhelmed by opportunities. You're overwhelmed because you evaluate every single one from scratch.
Right now, somewhere in your inbox, there's a pitch you've read at least twice and still haven't answered. A collab that sounds interesting but also sounds like more of your time. A partnership that checks some boxes but not others, and you can't quite name which ones matter.
When you don't have criteria, this is what happens. And it only takes 60 seconds to recognize a yes. If it's taking three days, you don't have a decision problem. You have a criteria problem.
When I was a sales rep, no deal entered my pipeline without passing qualification first. I needed to understand specific things before I'd give it my time: Does this account have budget? Is there a real problem I can solve? Is there a decision-maker in the room? If I couldn't answer those, it didn't go in the system.
You need something similar for your business.
As a creator, your qualified buying criteria might look like: Does this brand's audience overlap with mine? Does the content actually align with what I create? Does the compensation reflect my reach and the effort required? Does saying yes to this move my business forward, or just fill my calendar?
Those questions aren't meant to make you more selective for the sake of it. They're meant to make the decision before the emotion of the moment kicks in.
Here's how to build yours. Three questions, answered once, applied every time:
What does this have to pay, feel like, or produce for it to be a yes? Think rate minimums, brand alignment, creative control. Whatever "right" looks like for you.
What makes it an automatic no, regardless of the money? Brands that conflict with your values. Turnarounds that don't respect your process. Contracts that own your content long-term. Know this in advance.
What category of thing doesn't get space in my head at all? This one's underrated. For a lot of creators, it's freebies. Unless it's a strategic brand relationship with a clear upside, an unpaid collab shouldn't even enter the evaluation. It's not a no. It's a non-starter. Other examples: revenue shares with no guaranteed floor, partnerships that require exclusivity without exclusivity pay, content formats you've already decided aren't for you.
When those three are answered in advance, the inbox gets quieter. Not because fewer things arrive. Because you stop spending energy on the ones that were never right for you.
The goal isn't to say yes to the right things. It's to stop bleeding energy on the wrong ones.
One question worth sitting with this week:
What's one category of opportunity you keep entertaining even though you already know the answer is no?
Name it. Write it down. That's the beginning of your criteria.
And if you want to share it, send it to me at [email protected] I'd genuinely love to read them.
If you want to build your full criteria set and apply it to the decisions sitting in your inbox right now, that's exactly what we do in the Decision Reset. 90 minutes, $750 [Book here]