Freedom from Free

Aligning your intentions with your pricing

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I handle requests, mostly from people I don’t know for what amounts to unpaid work. Of course, it’s never described that way. Mostly, those who write either want to schedule a Zoom about some topic or other or they’re looking for a conference speaker willing to forgo a fee.?

I almost never agree to take this kind of work. As noted in my earlier posting, I usually ask those requesting a call or a Zoom to briefly write out their question. If it’s something I can answer in a few lines, I do so. If not, I express gratitude to them for being in touch but let them know I don’t have time to give their query the attention it deserves.

My colleague Carol Kauffman, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Institute of Coaching, uses a similar but more strategic process. She asks people seeking to set up a call to write a two-pager describing what their challenge is, what solutions they’ve tried, and what options they’re considering.

She reports that about 95% of people never write back if they’re asked to “pay” by doing some work themselves.?If they do write back, and it's clear they’ve spent time on their response, she agrees to a brief call because she thinks they’ve earned it.

Carol adds that, when there’s a request she doesn’t have the bandwidth for, she never says no. “Not ever. I always say, I wish I could’ve said yes.”

If, unlike Carol and me, you’re still early in your career, you may not be inundated with appeals for advice. In that case, you may want to respond in a more open-ended way. After all, you never know what opportunities might result from unsolicited emails.??

But requests for Zooms or calls are one thing. Inquiries about unpaid speaking engagements or workshops are another. I find that people who don’t mention or ask about a fee often simply assume that I don’t charge one. In such cases, I attach a pricing sheet to my response. If they subsequently let me know that my price is beyond their budget, I usually note I’m not accepting engagements below my usual fee this year, or suggest they try to find a sponsor for my event.?

Of course, I sometimes want to accept a low or even no-pay offer because I view the group as doing work of great value. Even so, I always ask if other speakers are being paid, and if so, how much. I’ve been burned a few times and know firsthand how bad it feels to altruistically accept terms you?later learn others have not agreed to. Even if you have a wonderful time at the event, it always leaves a bad taste.

This happened to me twice, and in both cases it was the client who let the cat out of the bag. The head of one association exulted when he greeted me at the airport, “You’ll have a chance to meet X tonight at the dinner! We had to pay her a ton, but we’re lucky to have her.”?

As they say in New York, “And what am I, chopped liver?”

If you’re an independent contractor offering more comprehensive services, you’ll want to be even more careful about accepting terms you might later come to regret, especially when it comes to moving ahead with work before you’ve nailed down the payment details. A colleague I’ll call Cheryl, who designs leadership programs for mostly corporate clients, describes an especially painful example.

A pharmaceutical firm had put her together with a renowned consultant to build an initiative they could roll out across the globe. The client had not yet sent the contracts (these things can take months) when Cheryl and the consultant got to work. After a few productive sessions, Cheryl received notice that the executive who had commissioned the program was leaving the company, which meant the project would not be going forward.??

She contacted the consultant, who she’d enjoyed working with, but he did not return her call. After a few more efforts, she gave up, figuring their program would never see the light of day. But she soon learned that the consultant had shopped their ideas to another Fortune 500 company without including or even mentioning her.?

She spoke to her lawyer, who suggested she document the work she had contributed and consider filing suit against the consultant. She then sought advice from several colleagues, two of whom noted that the consultant had very deep pockets and had a reputation for being litigious. After a few fretful months, she decided she didn’t want to get involved in what might be years of contentious litigation that could end up dragging in the client who had originally commissioned the work. So she let it go.

In retrospect, Cheryl would have been wiser to wait until the client had signed the contracts. But as any freelancer or self-employed person who negotiates for themselves can attest, we’re sometimes so eager to land a client or our schedule is so tight that we just plunge in. The upshot? We end up doing free work that we had no intention of doing. And unpaid work can make us feel a lot like chopped liver.

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