{"id":4793,"date":"2015-08-25T07:54:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T11:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planfoundations.com\/?p=4793"},"modified":"2015-08-25T07:54:49","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T11:54:49","slug":"will-you-work-free-for-me-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/will-you-work-free-for-me-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Will You Work Free for Me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will You Work Free for Me?<\/h2>\n

\"Will<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Imagine that a prospective client engages with you about the offering they need, which you provide. He or she wants to \u201cpick your brain.\u201d At first you talk on the telephone multiple times, then in person. The conversations flow naturally, as they should with good business relationships, and you are excited to work with this new client. Then your instincts take over and you pause. \u201cWait a minute,\u201d you say to yourself. \u201cI\u2019ve talked to this person twelve times, but I don\u2019t have an agreement or any hours I can invoice yet.\u201d At what point will you say enough is enough? \u201cI do not work for free. My time is valuable and we need an agreement before we proceed.\u201d Perhaps you\u2019re familiar with the Gold Rule. No, not the Golden Rule\u2014the Gold Rule: Those with the gold make the rules. One of those rules is to get as much as they can out of you for as little as possible\u2014perhaps even for free, if you let them. Why not? This is business. It\u2019s not personal\u2014at least not for them. Ah, situational ethics, it\u2019s nice to see you again, my old nemesis. People\u2019s business tactics reveal their intentions. How will you recognize the signs?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Your request for fair-value business engagement is ignored.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u201cWe have more important things to discuss right now. Can you help me with this?\u201d They might even cry poor. You\u2019ve sent your proposal without receiving acknowledgement. After delivering free product samples, the professional courtesy of a response remains unmet\u2014even after multiple voicemail messages.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Your instincts sense that someone is taking advantage of you.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      You know the feeling, something\u2019s not quite right. Perhaps you\u2019ve seen this movie before. In some business environments, if you don\u2019t know who is being screwed, then it\u2019s you. Trust your gut.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Someone asks you to do something for free for which you normally charge a fee.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \u201cWill you work for free for me?\u201d is asked in so many glorious forms. If you find yourself providing more than a work sample, stop. Decide for yourself whether you have agreed to work for free or not. (Anecdotally, note that I\u2019m not being paid to give you this advice!) When you are operating from a position of scarcity (that is, you don\u2019t have enough money), the temptation becomes greater to submit to subtle demands to work for free to prove your value. It can take the internal fortitude of an NFL linebacker to say, \u201cNo, I will not do that,\u201d when you don\u2019t have enough money. On the other hand, when operating from a position of abundance (having more money than you need), it\u2019s much easier to say, \u201cI don\u2019t work for free. You\u2019ll get what you pay for. Perhaps it\u2019s time for us to move on.\u201d They might even demonstrate their respect for you by paying you\u2014or they might not. A business friend of mine shares a useful technique for managing requests for free work. She wrote to me and said, \u201cI actually keep a little purple plastic champagne flute on my desk– a friend’s business-promotion gift– and I put a quarter into it every time someone asks me to work for free, whether or not I consciously choose to do so. It fills up fast, and it keeps me conscious of recognizing when I’m being asked to work for free.\u201d I must confess that I have a soft spot for my former students, readers, and audience members. I choose to work for free for them\u2014on a one-time basis, for a set amount of time. But when I\u2019m asked to work for free and I haven\u2019t chosen to, you now know what I\u2019ll say. What will you say? \"Work<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Copyright \u00a9 John J. McAdam. All Rights Reserved.<\/sub><\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Will You Work Free for Me? \u00a0 Imagine that a prospective client engages with you about the offering they need, which you provide. He or she wants to \u201cpick your brain.\u201d At first you talk on the telephone multiple times, then in person. The conversations flow naturally, as they should with good business relationships, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,25,26,14],"tags":[11,15,70,17,71],"class_list":["post-4793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","category-sales","category-sales-marketing-advertising-public-relations","category-john-j-mcadam-blog","tag-business-planning","tag-marketing","tag-pricing","tag-strategy","tag-work-free"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}