- Good morning, Tampa Bay and around the world.
I'm so happy to see you today.
Our topic for today is one that is
a little contentious sometimes.
Anyway, we're talking today about should you work for free.
It is an age-old debate.
And although there is no real single answer
to that question, we'll talk about the pros and cons
of working for free during today's show.
Now, I'm Denise O'Berry, and I help small business owners
and solo professionals do the right things
to grow their business and improve their cash flow.
If you're joining me live here today, welcome, welcome.
If you're joining me on the recording,
then welcome to you also.
Please make sure if you're joining live
to go ahead and kick in the comments,
where you're joining me from
and let me know if you can hear me okay.
All right, so let's move forward.
Like I said, today we're going to talk about,
should you work for free?
Now, the internet has opened up a whole new world
of things that you can do for free.
So I want to just let you know where I'm going
to narrow this show down to today.
I'm not talking about the free that you do
that's actually classified as marketing,
because there's a lot of free stuff that we do
that really does fall into the marketing bucket,
and we want to do that on a separate show
because it's such a big topic all by itself.
What I want to talk to you about today
is the type of free that you're requested to do
by clients or prospects.
That's normally classified as work you do on spec
or work that you do for exposure.
Love that one, doing it for exposure.
Now, both of those types of free work
are what I call hope work.
You do the work, and you hope for payment.
And that's not a good way to run a business.
So you want to make sure and be smart about it
when you do work for free.
And today I'm gonna talk about a couple of examples
and I'm gonna give you three questions
to ask yourself when you are trying to decide,
gee, should I do this work for free, or should I not?
So, first of all, let's talk about a couple
of different situations.
I have tons of them from over the years.
I've been in business since 1996,
so I've had lots of opportunities for people to ask me
to work for free.
But I'll just share two specific situations today,
and if you have a situation where you have a question
about it, please go ahead and leave it in the comments
and I'll get to it during the show.
I love to have live questions during the show,
so make you sure enter it there.
And if you're listening to the recording,
go ahead and post your question there
so that I can come back and answer it at a later time.
So here's the first situation, I was participating
in a forum discussion on small business owners
and solo professionals recently,
and this person asked, what are your thoughts
about a client asking you to work for free
because everything is going to be amazing
once they launch their product.
They have a ton of connections,
and if you come through for me I will hook you up.
Oh, boy, doesn't that just sound tantalizing?
Gosh, you're gonna get so much business from doing this.
If someone wants you to do work for free,
with the promise of connections,
now, isn't that a little bit pie-in-the-sky?
Our hearts get really excited and we go,
oh my gosh, work, work, work.
But it's not work, it's hope.
It's not even a promise,
because you don't have anything in writing.
It's just free work you're gonna do for somebody
for maybe some payback in the future, at some future time.
And what the heck does that mean?
They have a ton of connections and they'll come through
for you and hook you up?
What does hooking you up mean?
So, what happens in these types of situations
when people approach us like this,
is our hearts take over instead of our head taking over.
So, logic just kind of goes out the window
and we go, yes, of course we'll do this,
I can just see the dollar signs coming in my business now.
When the reality is typically not the case.
So that's one scenario.
And I told this person, I said,
you have to make your own decision.
But promises like that just typically don't come through.
It's like those promises of exposure,
because that's what this person is promising her, exposure.
Well, sorry, but exposure does not pay the mortgage.
And this has been just an age-old thing.
I'm sure it was alive before the internet.
But it's really been a big thing especially since
so many small businesses and solo professionals
have jumped on the internet bandwagon
because there's so much opportunity there
for making a business on the internet.
So, you know, just be forewarned.
Doing something for exposure normally doesn't turn into much
besides doing free work.
Now, here's another example.
This is one where somebody might say, well,
you didn't have to do much work.
But this is a really, really common example
and approach for me.
I had a large technology brand, I'm not gonna name it,
but you would know this brand if I told you who it was.
And they contacted me and said, we want to work together.
Okay, all right, so we want to work together.
Now, I've worked with a lot of brands.
I love to work with brands.
But it has to be an even exchange of business
and production, as far as whatever the outcomes are.
And we talked back and forth via email,
and what it ultimately boiled down to
is this person wanted to do a guest post on my website.
Well, I don't do guest posts.
I used to, years and years ago, but not anymore.
Now, if someone wants to use the real estate of my business,
and yes, my website is my business,
then I offer them the opportunity of a sponsored post.
Seems fair to me, coming into my business
and posting their for sale sign,
why shouldn't I get something out of it, right?
Anyway, so I offered them the opportunity
of a sponsored post.
And they came back, now remember, this is a huge brand,
and they said that they had no budget.
Okay, well, big brand, no budget, that's interesting.
I guess next time I go to buy some piece of technology
from them, I'll say I have no budget.
Anyway, I digress.
But she also said if working together,
now there's that phrase again, working together,
required payment, then she'd have to move on.
Well, yes, working together does require payment.
Because you know what, working for free, again,
doesn't pay the mortgage, it doesn't buy groceries,
it doesn't put clothes on your back.
It doesn't keep your business going.
You cannot work for free
and have a valid business moving forward.
So, needless to say, she went on her own way.
You know, just be really careful about these buzz phrases.
"I'm gonna hook you up," "I want to work together with you."
Make sure that you jump from your heart to your head
and put your logic at work there and say,
hey, wait a minute.
Because those things are not working together.
Now I promised you three questions that you can use
to make sure that you shift from your heart to your head
and use logic in order to decide
whether you're going to work for free or not.
So here's question number one that you need to ask yourself.
What will I not be doing to make money in my business
if I do this free thing.
That's a really sound question you should ask yourself,
because what are we entrepreneurs, small business owners,
solo professionals, anybody who owns a business,
what are we most starved for?
Time, time is our biggest issue
and we have to use it to our advantage.
And to be as efficient as we possibly can.
So, what you're narrowing down here with this question is,
what am I willing to use my time for?
If you're doing something on spec, for exposure,
and not getting paid, you are giving up a lot.
Your time is the most expensive item that you have
in your business, and once time is gone,
can't get it back, you can't make more of it.
That's the one single equalizer around the world
in any business on any day.
We all have the same amount of it,
so we have to use it efficiently.
That's question number one.
What will I not be doing to make money in my business
if I do this free thing?
And, if you go through that question
and make the decision that yeah, it's worth it for me
to not be doing the thing that would make me money
to do that free thing, then you can go ahead and do it.
Totally up to you.
So here's question number two.
Is the prospect willing to sign an agreement
guaranteeing the outcome, whether it's money or connections?
Hmm, interesting, huh?
If your exposure thing is the thing that is going
to be your payment, then that person ought to be willing
to sign an agreement with you
to say, hey, I'm gonna introduce you to 10 people,
they're gonna be these kind of people,
and I will open these doors for you.
That is not an unfair thing to do.
You are giving your time, you're doing free work.
You're not getting money coming into your business,
but if you have specific agreements
about what that person is gonna do for you
in addition to what you're doing for them,
then you should come out a little bit better off.
So, make sure that you have some type of agreement
with that person who has promised you the world
in connections or exposure.
And if they are not willing to do an agreement,
guess what, you need to walk away.
Now, you may still decide to go forward,
that's entirely up to you, it's your business.
But I completely recommend that you walk away.
So that's question number two.
Is the prospect willing to sign an agreement
guaranteeing the outcome, whether it's money or connections?
Now remember, from your business perspective,
you're guaranteeing some outcome to them,
so why doesn't the flip of that work?
Think about that.
And last but not least,
let's talk about question number three.
How will completing this work benefit me or my company?
Now again, you've got to back to using your head,
not your heart here.
You need to think logically about how doing this free thing
is going to move your company forward.
Every step that you take in your business
is one that's gonna move your company forward, backwards,
sideways, something like that.
The direction you want to go is that you want to make sure
that you're moving forward.
So how will completing this work benefit me or my company?
Think about that.
How will it do that for your company?
And then once you've answered all three of these questions,
and you've done it with your head, not your heart,
you can make your decision on whether you're going
to move forward with this free work or not.
But don't just jump into it because of excitement
and because you think this is gonna be a really cool thing.
Trust me on this, over the years,
way early on when I started my business,
yeah, I got caught in that trap, too.
You start visualizing all the cool things that can happen
because this person is promising some kind of exposure,
or if you do your work on spec,
you know you're going to get paid for it.
The reality is no, it doesn't work that way.
Doesn't work that way.
So make sure that you use these three questions
in order to move your business forward
and make wise decisions
so that you're using your time wisely,
so that you're bringing cash into your business.
I want you to have a sustainable business
and these three questions will help you do that.
The main thing you have to remember
is hope is not a strategy.
And free does not pay the bills.
So take some time to think about what you're giving up
and what the realistic outcome may be
before you decide to move forward.
Now, before I wrap up for today,
I want to go ahead and share with you a quote.
The thing that's really interesting about this quote
is it came into my social media feed today,
just this morning, when I was getting ready to go live here
and do this talk.
And let me get it here, it's right on my phone.
It says, when you say yes to others,
make sure you're not saying no to yourself.
Is that so appropriate or what?
And I'm sorry, I don't know who the author of that is.
But make sure when you say yes to others,
you're not saying no to yourself.
And that's exactly what doing free work can do for you.
It will be saying no to yourself
rather than yes to yourself,
which is not selfish, it's not selfish.
It's the way for you to have a sustainable business
and move forward, be happy,
and have the life that you love.
That's what's so important.
So, I'm gonna wrap up for today.
It's been fun talking about this subject.
I really want you to be a success.
Now, one more thing, please, if you have a moment,
share this video with friends of yours
that might be interested in this topic
or might be able to use help.
And make sure you like this page so that you get
notification each and every time that I go live,
which is every single Monday at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
And don't forget, you can always hop on over
to deniseoberry.com for lots and lots of free
small business tools, tips, and advice.
I'm happy to help you over there and happy to help you here.
So with that, I will wrap up and say,
have a great a week, use those three questions
to help you and your business, and I'll sign off for now.