If you run a small business, you and your business need to guard against the damage caused by Internet freebie hunters. These people see the Internet as a 100% free resource; a place where the normal rules of business simply don’t apply; a place where your time and your knowledge is theirs by right!
The best way to think of their mindset, is that they would eat free cheese samples at a deli counter – even if they hated the taste of cheese – JUST because it was free.
If you have been online for any length of time, you will have encountered these freebie hunters yourself. They are the ones, who email you asking for free advice on complex problems they are having. They are the ones, who see the comment section of a blog as a place to get free advertising for their business. They are the ones, who go to forums to tout for business, rather than contribute to the conversation. They are the ones, who send you DM spam on Twitter (it’s free advertising in their mind.)
Most importantly, they are the ones, who will send you out of business, if you let too many of them suck your resources dry!
What makes these serial freebie hunters so dangerous, is that they sometimes disguise themselves as prospective clients / customers. However, they are a totally different breed of person. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. They will devour your time, energy and resources, knowing from the very start that they have no intention whatsoever of repaying you for your help. They leech advice from experts, then try and deploy what they have been told themselves. Of course, it seldom works, but it’s free and that’s their primary focus – FREE!
It’s often hard to spot these people upfront, but there is a common characteristic I see in the ones that target me: Their business is almost always in really bad shape!
This is true even if they have been in business for years. Their business reaches a plateau and stays there until they go broke or change their attitude. Somehow, they don’t seem to realise it’s impossible to develop a successful business, based on leeching free advice from people.
The only effective way to protect yourself from the damage they can cause, is to set some limits on the level of free help and advice you give to people. You need to set your limits based around your unique situation, but here’s how I do it.
General advice is free BUT specific advice isn’t.
I give a lot of valuable, free marketing advice away to people every day. I do this via posts (like this one) here on the blog, as well as via my marketing newsletter. Now, that’s general marketing information, which is designed to provide as much value as possible to as many small business owners and sales / marketing people as possible.
However, if someone wants me to work with them on specific, targeted answers to the problems ruining their marketing and hurting their sales, they pay me.
Yes, there are people I connect with online, who I have never met, who I call and help for free. But these are people, who have connected with me and whom I have offered my help to. They didn’t ask – I offered. They are often not in a position to pay for professional help and I’m in a financial position where I can afford to help them for free.
You know what? I LOVE helping them too!
You know what else? They value my time and that is worth a lot to me.
Your time is not money
Your time is not money – it’s far, far more valuable than that. Money can be replaced, time can not. Unless you put some kind of structure in place, even a simple one like I mentioned above, your business is at risk of being bled dry by the Internet freebie hunters.
Now, this is where you come in: I want you to either share your experiences of Internet freebie hunters (don’t name them please), or share your tips for dealing with them. Your feedback here will be of great value to my readers and myself, so please share your experiences.
Image credit: Jeffrey Collingwood
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I’m not going to call myself a freebie hunter, but I have gotten valuable advice for free. In some cases, specific advice. I attribute this to two ideas:
1. Connection. You have to network and make connections with the right people. Friendly people who know you’re willing to invest in their time and who will invest in yours.
2. Confidence. If I weren’t positive about my goals and ideas, nobody would ever help me. I’m certain that these people wouldn’t give me the time of day if I didn’t have the confidence to ask for it.
As far as dealing with people who want free advice – I give it, and then I share it with everyone else. That’s the whole premise of my headway blog, actually – helping people with specific problems for free. This has two advantages:
1. Authority. There is another blog in my niche but they don’t update as often or answer users as quickly. My speed and volume grow my authority, even though it takes some time.
2. Free advertising. People are happy to help you when you help them. Most of the time.
That’s my take on it. =)
Corey,
Thanks for the feedback.
The post is about identifying people who have zero respect for your time and who exploit it, exclusively for their own benefit.
I appreciate your points though and I may address your topic in a future post.
I had an email recently from someone, which started off with a direct demand of help. She never even introduced herself, she just started off with the words “ADVICE PLEASE!” and that was it! And yes she used caps.
I spent 20 years developing my skills and am unlikely to respond positively to someone that’s as ignorant as that. Like you said she actually just expected my expertise for free.
The challenge Darren, is that there are many professionals, who feel obliged to respond to that kind of demand.
I even see it on blogs, including this one; where people ask the blog owner for answers to an extremely complex problem, which would be impossible to answer professionally via a comment or a series of emails.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Yes, there’s a huge difference in donating time to help someone who values and appreciates it – not just for yourself but also to the person who is receiving the help.
When someone appreciates it, they put in the effort to make use of the advice they are being given. When someone is in the “gimme gimme” mindset, they’re putting all their energy into obtaining or manipulating a freebie and don’t actually learn how to benefit from the info.
A few ways I deal with it are:
- Keeping it general with people who refuse to provide their name. Admittedly this is not easy on the telephone when the person is in tears on the other end.
- Sending “open” responses to complex questions where the onus is on the other person to continue the conversation. This is to save spending valuable time on someone who has sent a question on impulse and is not too concerned about following through.
- Most importantly – Being very clear in my own mind as to what I will and won’t help with for free. Drawing the line is hard but I’m a therapist and giving a small amount of free advice to a person can actually hurt them if they haven’t committed to their own development.
Have you thought of making an fb fanpage for your new site and have the fanbox on your under construction or login page. It would allow click throughs to keep uptodate of your launch.
Hi Reeta,
I think that in your particular case, you have to be extremely careful. Like you say, a little information can be a very bad thing, because of the complexity of your profession.
Your tips are great by the way – thanks for contributing!!
I agree with this. The agreement I would likely make with people is I am ok answering questions if I can use the QandA in a video or blog post. If they want more indepth advice maybe asking them to blog about how you helped them might be a way to pay for that time. That said knowing when to say you have to pay for more advice is a good idea. When would you bring it up. As for using blog comments for marketing I think those who have the best success would be those who contribute. You give people an embedded link and a twitter address which I always see as trade for insightful comments that make your blog comments better.
So what made you switch layouts. I liked the previous one before. On TC the have this fb share option that I thnk would be really nice for your blog. That way we can store the links in our fb profile. I find this much more useful than the retweet stuff cause I prefer facebook to twitter. Truth is I am having trouble seeing why twitter is so useful. That is the thing that really gets me because I would hate to be without facebook but if twitter went away I could care less. Honestly what can you say intelligently in a 140 characters.. anyways love the blog..
Thanks for the feedback Gebadia – much appreciated.
Regarding the Facebook button, you can share the posts from this blog to Facebook, using the ‘Share This’ button below each poet.
I meant the one like Techcrunch has.. that works like retweet.. but share this works too..
Great points, Jim, and ones that I think become even more prevalent when people see that you’re helpful. And then they get all pissy because you start saying “No”…
There’s definitely a line between free advice and billable hours. I’m with you – it goes so far, then it will have to make the switch. Everyone has to eat and keep a roof over their heads – despite what Chris Anderson might say, free doesn’t pay the bills.
Couldn’t agree more Danny.
I see it a LOT with designers online, where people ‘posing’ as potential clients manage to talk the designer into providing work, pretending it’s being used to evaluate their suitability. It’s bullcrap.
Thanks for popping by the blog sir!!
The way I deal with this is to decide which is more important — giving away the farm, or creating a viable relationship. Sometimes, there is no clear line and I have to rely on my instincts – usually done better in person or on the phone than in digital obscurity.
Great post by the way.
Cynthia Frisina Gray
Hi Cynthia,
You make a great point about your instincts and I believe that over time, it gets a lot easier to spot the fakes. However, as you point out, this is a lot more challenging online.
Thanks for the comment and your kind words – much appreciated
Having been online with my own websites and businesses since 1997 I’ve seen a lot of what your talking about. It got really bad when I put my toll free number at the top of my blog. OMG, I got all sorts of bottom feeders and idiots calling.
That said, sharing my experiences, observations and client stories via a daily and weekly newsletter (which I did for 6 years) built my business – it generated phone calls about my services.
In my experience, blogging for business is a mindset not a strategy. It’s about putting yourself out there to initiate an intelligent dialogue with people.
This is my first time posting here–found your blog through Twitterfeed– and I thank you so much for this article! In my business I help entrepreneurs to write books to market their businesses, and I frequently get those general requests from people who can’t even tell me specifically what kind of help they want. They tell long complex stories, but make no specific request. It took me a long time to realize there’s no way to answer these in a satisfactory manner, especially when it’s clear the person has no intention on becoming a paying client. I love books and I love to help, but these requests do cost me and I had to learn to walk away from them.
Welcome to the blog Sophfronia!
You make a great point here, regarding the difficulty in providing the answers someone needs, when they themselves are vague about their actual problem.
They tend to want structured, specific answers but because they want your time / expertise for free, they often miss bits out. This makes it waaaaaay too easy for you to give them the wrong advice; purely because their problem required a LOT more research – more than is possible via a ‘freebie.’
End result: The service provider can’t deliver the correct answer and the freebie hunter heads off to try the same low-class trick on another victim!
Most of the truly valuable business I get comes from people I know or know off. I love hearing from and communicating with new people but I do like to get references before starting on something new. People who value your time will be happy to pay.
You hit the nail on the head there Murray – People who value your time will be happy to pay.
However, many service providers start off by showing little value for their own time, by being too accommodating and giving too much away for free.
It makes it far harder to start charging, if you have given so much of your time for nothing. This is especially the case, if you manage to solve a primary issue for them and there’s no longer any real motivation for them to take action and hire you.
Hi Jim,
You post it before me
. I was gonna record a video about this exact thing. Another common thing for these people is that their business is always just starting off so they don’t have money to spend.
At first I was taking my time to look at their websites and see what needs to be done. Now, I ask a direct question: you want my services for free? If the answer is yes then I direct the person to my blog where he/she can get ALL my knowledge for free.
Solving specific problems has to be paid. I think people misunderstand the concept of free content but I also think it’s the duty of every service provider to educate the public.
Thanks
Hi Jim, Its an interesting (and on occasion desperate) situation, the cost of free and the “line in the sand” when it should become business.
As you have said in previous posts, making the call that “this is now billable time” can be difficult and will almost exclusively depend on the client and your ability to assess them and if they are serious or not.
Another angle to this is covered by these guys in a candid way and although it digresses a little it has some other angles to consider as well in the internet mindset of “Freeism”:
http://www.from-the-couch.com/post.cfm/title/1000-clients-or-1000000-fans
Also, this vid has been floating around for a while now and still makes me smile (its about half way down the post):
http://www.justinparks.com/clients-budgets-cost-a-website/
While I’m sure we all appreciate the amount of free stuff we can indeed get on the internet, it really isn’t viable, but the fact that its there makes the business of doing business so much more difficult because the mindset is “oh its free so your free as well” and for me, I get quite offended at this. I could never assume that anyones time is free and expect the same in return.
As you say “Your time is not money – it’s far, far more valuable than that.”
Thanks for the comment and the links Justin.
In your second paragraph, you refer to them as a ‘client’ which, is interesting. I see that a lot and whilst it may have been written by accident, it’s a fact that many service providers fail to differentiate someone asking for a freebie, from a prospective client or even a client. A prospective client is someone with a genuine need for our help and the willingness / availability to pay. A freebie hunter knows from the start that they won’t pay you a penny. They will grab what they can and then go and pester their next victim.
As someone said earlier, it takes time to learn how to spot the freebie hunters. Sadly, many small businesses go broke by doing too much for free; often for people who are well able to pay.
“many service providers fail to differentiate someone asking for a freebie, from a prospective client or even a client.”
That’s exactly what I was attempting to say, thanks for clarifying Jim.
For the most part I don’t mind answering questions. The issue that I have is when people just don’t want to hear what I have to say because its not a fun and easy road to success. The road to success consists of hard work, no real social life, and very little sleep. That’s not a well received message. I’ve worked in show business in a variety of capacities and most people just can’t comprehend why I would rather be my own boss. People want to hear a different answer than the one they got from someone else. The old saw about it takes practice, practice, practice to get to Carnegie hall is true. Most people aren’t prepared to hear that it takes 7 hours of rehearsal per week, two private lessons, two masters classes and three hours of practice per day on your instrument of choice. And, no there is no time for dating unless your sweetheart is in the orchestra and thinks ear training together is a date. (some do!)
Also, in the film industry its even worse. No one wants to hear about the number of freebies you do or how you must risk life and limb (literally) to work on a crummy script that gets cut down to a short from 90 pages. No one wants to hear that they need a temp job to make ends meet. They don’t want to know about how closed the unions are to new talent (below the line, not actors.)
So, even when I know how to get to where someone wants to go, they don’t like the answer. Jeez, if it was easy everybody would do it! But also, in a way it is easy. You just have to look for the jobs, ask for the jobs, and be the solution that the producer is looking for. Its no different than any other industry, just be what someone is looking for, that’s what counts. The qualities of any good employee really are transferable from one industry to the next. In this day and age of available information, it really is possible to do what you want.
ReetaLuthra- I have the same issue where giving a little advice can actually harm someone. I can’t give a short violin lesson, its possible to cause nerve damage if you don’t have a really good instructor in the first year of training (I know it happened to me.)
The line between free and billable for me falls in the following, I will point someone in the direction of a good instructor, website, software (ear training is so cheap these days) or good rosin (for the bow.) but, I won’t teach for free. Even when I was in high school I was paid for lessons, so why be cheap now? Also, I put water marks on my photography and video samples. If a producer wants to see more, I will show up in person.
I found this article via twitter. Someone else re-tweeted it.
I suspect it must be difficult for marketing consultants to tell real potential clients from freebie hunters. Partly because if its a new company the marketing is for, there may be little profit in the first few months to pay for premium services.
Its possible the potential clients may not be too sure if they are freebie hunters or future clients anyway!
This is because a series of questions have to be answered, and the more answers we get the more likely to convert into paying clients. These are the usual dam fool questions why, who, when, how etc. (which we are often too embarrassed to ask).
Why – what are the benefits, and does it work?
Who – who should we use to reduce any risk of the project failing?
When – when should we begin and why?
How – how much does it cost and how can it be managed?