Story№ 006Fiction
The deal that waited a hundred and twelve days
Arjun said yes in a voice note. Then to a link in bio, a re-record and a reshoot. Then he waited a hundred and twelve days to find out what yes had cost.
The deal, day by day
Day 0 → 31
Arjun reviews gadgets from a rented room in Kochi. Nine thousand followers, and a comment section that actually asks him things. When an earbuds brand messaged him, it felt like the start of something.
The brief came two days later, as a three-minute voice note from an agency he had never heard of. One Reel, two Stories, “the usual deliverables”, live by month end. Arjun sent his rate. A week later: a little less than that, and could he also add a link in bio for two weeks?
He said yes. Arjun always says yes.
A fee agreed in chat, a deliverable added after the price was set, and no deadline anyone could point to.
The brief is the first object on the deal. The offer carries the fee, the deliverables and the deadline, and he can counter before he accepts. Once he does, the terms are frozen in the deal's contract. A link in bio that was never on the offer is a new offer, not a favour.
Small changes
Day fourteen, the Reel. Day twenty, a note: he had said the product name wrong. He hadn’t, but the founder says it differently, and the founder is the brand. Re-record. Day twenty-four: the new take’s lighting doesn’t match. Reshoot.
Every round of changes was reasonable on its own. Nobody had agreed how many rounds there were.
It went live on day thirty-one. The saves were excellent, which is what matters for a review, and what nobody asked about.
Three versions of one Reel, with feedback relayed by a middleman.
The Reel is submitted on the deal, and the brand reviews, asks for a change and approves it there. Every request sits on the deal with its note and its date, so the third one is a conversation about scope, not a favour.
The waiting
Day thirty-two, the invoice. “Payment terms are forty-five days,” said the agency, for the first time. Day seventy-seven, “just following up”. Day eighty-four, Accounts wanted the GST invoice in a different format. Day ninety-eight, he stopped posting about earbuds he genuinely liked.
In the group chat, Paid in Candles, Tenzin sent one line: “Ask them who Accounts is.”
On day one hundred and twelve the money arrived, short. The agency’s commission had come off the creator side. Nobody had said so, because nothing had been written down.
Eighty days from invoice to payment, five follow-ups, and a deduction found at the end.
The fee is on the offer, and every line that comes off it, tax or a manager's agreed share, is named on the invoice. The invoice and its status live on the deal, where both sides see the same thing. Handsel does not make Accounts faster. It makes “where is it” a question nobody has to ask.
What this story is about
Not a bad brand, and not a bad agency. A deal with nowhere to live: the brief in a voice note, the fee in a chat, the rounds in nobody’s head, the payment terms in a policy he saw after the work. Arjun did everything right. He just said yes to a deal that didn’t exist anywhere.
Arjun, Tenzin and the earbuds brand are made up, from the cast of our studio's series. The hundred and twelve days are not.