If you run a business, you will already know how precious your time is. This is why it’s so important to ensure that you avoid time wasters, and that’s what this post is all about.
Time wasters
One of the biggest time sucks in business, are those seeking free advice from you, with no intention of repaying you in any way. Often, these time wasters will disguise themselves as prospective clients or customers, in an effort to get the benefit of as much free information from you as possible. These are the time wasters I am going to focus on in this post!
Unless you have nothing better to do (and I know you have), you need to identify and remove these people from your business as soon as possible. You see, that “free” advice is only free for them! That so-called free advice costs you, in lost productivity and the inevitable slump you feel, after realising you have been suckered!
How to spot the time wasters
If there is someone right now, who you suspect is just trying to get as much free advice from you as they can, with no intention of repaying you for all that great information, I have a simple tip for you.
Try this: Ask them for some measurable time scales!
For example, ask them when they will have the funding in place. Ask them when they plan to get started with you. If they give you vague answers like “soon” or some other general answer, ask them for clarification. If they are serious, they will value and respect your need for clarity. It shows them that you are keen, interested and professional. However, if they were not genuinely interested in working with you, they will immediately realise that their game has been tumbled. They will then go and find another victim to drill for free information and you will have lost nothing.
Of course ultimately, the way you decide to allocate your time is down to you. If you want to spend more of your time speaking with people, who have a genuine interest in your services, you may find that simple idea useful. It has worked for my marketing business for more than a decade and saved me more time than any time management strategy I know.
Do you have any experience of dealing with time-wasters? Let us know what you think!
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Photo: Zoutedrop
Even a lawyer should legally give you the first hour of consultation free, so there should always be leeway but as you suggest, nothing quite like being taken for a ride, and there is a fine line to be trod between speculative investigation and free-loading.
Start by mentioning the price, that usually separates the wheat from the chaff
Thanks for the feedback. It’s also probably worth mentioning that the legal requirement to give the 1st hour free, is not applicable to Lawyers in every country.
The chaff occasionally talk BIG money, as a way to gain more free advice. Time scales, however, give them a deadline and in my experience that’s extremely effective.
Good point Jim.
I’ve noticed that some of the really good time-wasters have mastered using the “social” in social networking as a way of getting their foot further into the door than they would have been able to previously.
Then there are other people who you can tell genuinely want to know more – for info rather than freebie grabbing – but won’t ask because they are worried they’re not “allowed” to for free.
Ultimately it comes down to setting boundaries for yourself AND having the courage to convey these boundaries to other people.
.-= Reeta Luthra | Stress and Health´s last blog ..Expect a Miracle, Prepare to Work =-.
Jim, we’ve had this discussion before. I seem this year to have more people who fall into the free advice category. There are a few people I will always reach out to but the ones I know are taking advantage of me, I am trying to eliminate.
One of my colleagues often reminds me that the same people who want my services for free seem to find money for lattes or other splurges.
Our career industry services are one of the few that people can see as a true investment in the rest of their future. In the grand scheme of things, even the top priced career professional is a bargain in the light of potential earning power for the individual using the services.
.-= Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..Cultivating Network at Career Fairs —> Extra =-.
Julie, you make a valuable point.
Soft skill services such as coaching have a special place in the mindset of people. I think some people can struggle with:
1) Embarrassment in asking for professional help. As long as it’s free, it’s not admitting a flaw in themselves.
2) We’re brought up on stories of ancient masters, sages, gurus and their students – and the advice was given without the exchange of money.
The kind of coaching that people seek is life-changing (same as in the stories of the sages) so subconsciously, there’s an expectation that they should be able to pull it together from what they are able to obtain in snippets.
These two points are very generalised of course and need to be read with a bit of flexibility.
There is a segment who would never pay, no matter what – and they have their own reasons for this.
In my line of work, I’ve seen some depressed people stop their psychotherapy when their NHS allocation ran out rather than subsidise further sessions privately. They were able to afford it, it’s just that their mindset was blocked at having to pay for something that they *should* have got for free as they saw it.
I was actually going to blog along these lines and I think I just have here – hope I haven’t digressed too much Jim!
.-= Reeta Luthra | Stress and Health´s last blog ..Expect a Miracle, Prepare to Work =-.
I must agrees with :: Vincent Roman
A conversation that initiates with
Can You help Me! or Do You know how?
should always be answered with a mentioning of the price, this usually separates the wheat from the chaff like my friend Vincent Roman said.
Ps. Jim I guess looking within and reading Your blogs does help learn this crazy world of Marketing.
Thanks You all
Norman Flecha
Straight Talk
.-= STRAIGHTALK ´s last blog ..The Do’s and The Don’ts for online Networking / Marketing =-.
Reeta, you are more than right. Some time-wasters really don’t realize what damage they are doing to themselves in disguise. But as Jim mentioned a good strategy is that experts should spot them out at once from their vague answers and pending behaviors.
.-= American Wholesale Blog´s last blog ..Gift Suppliers & Valentine’s Day Gifts around the World =-.
There are some great ideas in the comments here!
Thank you all.
I think that talking about price upfront can also help tip a potential time waster into being a paying customer. I never find that people want free advice because they can’t afford the service. Many just conveniently forgot that this is my living and it comes at a price, and a subtle nudge to remind them focuses the conversation away from ‘please give me the answers for free’, to ‘I need the answers, and how much is it going to cost for them’.
Andy is right, of course;
But it’s old adage that efforts to protect oneself can create barriers to business.
As a long-in-the-tooth consulting engineer, I still find it horribly easy to get interested in whatever enquiry crosses my desk.
It’s a great life, but I get taken for rides by freeloaders all too often (if that isn’t oxymoronic). Darn’ thing is: these people don’t even say “thank-you”.
However, rather like dealing with spam, they’re best forgotten. Whilst one might feel like taking revenge, it probably isn’t a good idea.
As a particularly successful client once remarked: “Never Shut Doors”.
But if only one could trap their fingers every-so-often ….
[...] It seems that some things in business just never change. Like those people we affectionately call time wasters. [...]
[...] example, I spoke with a business owner recently, who told me how frustrated she was with all the time wasters who contacted her. I asked her what she meant by time wasters. Was she referring to people who [...]