Why Free is Too Expensive

Free implies no value.
Let me explain that statement with some examples.
About a year ago I outsourced a project to a new small business to try and help the owner out. I had been communicating with this individual on Twitter and I wanted to try and help him in his new venture. Unfortunately, the project did not go well. In fact, it kind of went sideways.
I decided to request an invoice for the work he had done, and I politely let him know that I didn’t think I would be using him for that type of work again – no hard feelings. About a month later, I received an email apologizing for what went wrong and informing me that he was not going to invoice me for the work. The value of the project was not huge in any case, less than $100.
I later learned that he quit his job to focus on the business full-time. Knowing it should make a huge difference in the quality and timeliness of his work, I wanted to try and help out again. I referred a couple of people to him and that’s when things went south. The business owner told the person I referred to him that he did work for me, and that I never paid!
I had a similar situation occur with another company I approached about a project I needed done. They insisted on doing the work for free because they wanted the exposure that working with me would bring them. However, when it came to deadlines, they told me they needed to prioritize paying clients. I never asked them to do it for free. I was always more than happy to pay; I just needed the work to be done.
A third instance occurred when someone who referred me to a very big client asked one day if she could “pick my brain” for a couple of hours because she wanted to do what I do in her industry. The warning sounds went off, but I said yes anyway – after all, she referred me to someone. It would be a good thing to give her a bit of my time for free, right?
I blocked out a couple of hours in the middle of a very busy week and guess what happened. Less than an hour before the meeting, she canceled because she was having a crazy day, giving no regard to how I had arranged my own crazy week around this appointment.
I am not sharing my experiences as a negative. Rather, I want you to learn three very important lessons about the implications of free:
1. When you give away your service for free, you diminish your own power. You give your power – the power you have created in your business – away and allow someone to devalue what you are willing to contribute.
2. When you allow someone to offer their services to you for free, you do the same thing to them. You devalue what they are worth.
3. When your time is free – the other person’s time will always be more important and more valuable than your time.
This is not to say that you should never do something for someone out of the kindness of your heart; just know that there is a right way and a wrong way. You should set up guidelines and boundaries in how you do it.
Recently, I offered to help someone out and these were the conditions: I told them I would give them some of my time and they could pay me when they got their business up and running. I did NOT say I would do it for free. I also told them that I had expectations around how they needed to perform and that if they did not take our work seriously and do what they needed to, that I would pull out of our agreement.
Because I set up a structure like this, the individual took things seriously. People have a desire to do well and be successful because they want to be able to pay their debt. They also understand that I am taking their progress seriously and I am investing in them. This empowers them to be great.
If you want to give back to the community follow these tips:
1. Do it without expecting anything in return.
2. Do it within a finite amount of time. For example, block a certain number of hours a month to give back.
3. Create a program around giving back and offer to schedule people through this program on a certain day of each month.
4. Set expectations and guidelines around what you will and won’t do as part of your giving back program.
5. Be clear with respect to how much access people have to you and your time. Creating structure in the beginning makes things work better for both parties in the end.
This is not to advocate that you should not charge for your services. You should and you should charge what you are worth. What this is advocating is, if giving back is part of your business, structure it well and take it seriously so others take it seriously too.
When you are charging for your services, don’t sell yourself short. Charge what you’re worth AND be sure and perform at the same standard by which you determine that worth.