Why Buy the Cow?
July 15th, 2010
Today I was delighted to read a post that was a topic bouncing in my brain for some time. Karima-Catherine beat me to it , (and it’s all kind of awesome) but in essence, it relates to the plight social media professionals have when we get that email asking, “Can we grab some coffee so I pick your brain?”
How many times have you gotten that question? I believe this happens to all kinds of freelancers and other professionals. For me, it’s common, happening several times a week. For the price of a cup of coffee, the sender (maybe innocuously) thinks it would be great to sit and let me share my ideas, tools, and strategies. Suffice to say, I’ve gotten more tight-lipped and cautious about what I share, often just referring people back to the web. My insides want to jump about and share everything, but I can’t, or rather, I shouldn’t. Why? Because I have spent a small fortune in time and resources to become sharp and knowledgeable in the spheres in which I consult. As professionals, that’s our duty. If I share all I’ve learned in a free chit-chat, what would be left and what value have I placed on my work? Precious little.
Before you say, “What a selfish statement!”, first consider this: would a gift basket company tell you where to find the best baskets and goodies to fill it? How many franchise sellers share with you all the you the ins and outs of running your own franchise, without the hope of selling you said franchise? How many graphic designers will sit and give you their best ideas and concepts over a cup of joe — all for free? Precious few. Isn’t this really a form of spec work?
Experience has taught me two things: when someone is feverishly taking notes, asking you question after question and “How do you do this?” or “What would you recommend I do for this?”, you can bet one (if not both) of the following will happen afterward: they will either try to do it themselves, pelting you with emails and calls for more “guidance” or worse, they’ll hire someone cheaper than you, fueling them with your ideas.
Don’t get me wrong, I do LOVE supporting, sharing, and the lovefest small businesses can create using tools like social media. That’s not the point. The point is how much of your own intellectual property are you willing to give away? How much value are you placing on your craft, no matter what that craft is? What is your end goal in doing so?
A casual chat is one thing, but a fact-finding expedition is quite another. For the sake of your business, learn the difference and think about this next time someone wants to “buy you coffee.” It could be an innocent enough request, but it could also be a brain-picking session where you come away exhausted and poorer for the experience. I believe in helping people (and do it every single day), but I also believe that if people really want expertise, they need to be prepared to pay for it. If they want a little help, but don’t want to pay, there is an enormous resource in the Internet, and as we like to say, Google is Your Friend. My legwork and experience makes things easier for paying clients, not people unwilling to do the legwork themselves.
I want to leave you with a couple of solutions to manage the scenario, should it come your way. Solution one: have the meeting, buy your own coffee, and see just how much they want from you. If for one moment you feel uncomfortable about the questions (your conscience says “Hello! We normally charge for that information!”), you can reply, “I completely get your question, and that’s the kind of consulting my clients hire me for. Maybe we need to set a time for an actual consult.”
The other solution: Reply with an email and ask what questions they have. Find out beforehand if this is indeed just a chat or if they’re really wanting an hour’s worth (or more) of your time — gratis. If it’s the latter, tell them you can talk by phone briefly, that way you can control the tempo, direction, and temptation to give out more information than you wish. It should reveal enough for you to decide whether or not you want to proceed or set a time for a real (read: paid) meeting.
Helping people is really a beautiful thing, so don’t stop doing that. Just learn the difference between helping and giving away so much that you run drastically short on billable hours at the end of the month. You do have a business to run.
Posted in Business 101, Coaching, Just a Thought, Social Media | 
Tags: consulting, freelancing, small business, Social Media
Great article Deb,
This applies to spec work as well and I’m sure happens to graphic designers and marketing people all the time. I try to be careful about how much research I do to see ‘IF’ a job can be done so that my end customer does not use my research to go find a cheaper product on the internet. Then get an order commitment in the form of a deposit to continue a project whether it’s research or design layout. It’s also frustrating to have someone tell you that they want to ‘USE’ a local vendor and insist on matching the internet pricing.
Hi Deb –
This happens everyday in Real Estate. To Brokers, Agents, Lenders, Stagers, Interior Designers, I guess we are all freelancers in some way. I like to give and share thoughts I am good about telling people no for coffee if I know it is one sided but I really love this: “is this coffee chat for collaboration’s sake or a meeting for competitive reconnaissance? I’m fully on board with meetings where we come together and bring something of value to the table, and can collaborate in a more dynamic way than we could solo.”
Hey Amy, I think you’re right — we are all freelancers in one way or another. I suppose we’re the only ones that can save us from ourselves and it’s good to vet people before sitting down and spilling our guts
I’m interested in how you shut people down, once you figure out the true intentions?
Deb – Other thoughts:
1) Explore if you can team or share work, especially if you have complementary skills that could add more value to your respective clients…or help add more clients. The “stronger together” model.
2) Treat “rate” information the same as intellectual capital; it’s market research.
Finally, if it’s an exploration, sometimes you do take a chance. A PR firm in Chicago recently asked me for a proposal, which I developed and delivered. The “principal” chose not to buy the proposed services…but did take the ideas and use them. (They’re working, too).
Lesson learned: Do explore relationships. Do build trust. So, do coffee as a way to start a relationship, where you can add an ally. Freelancers need business supporters, networks, coaches…and friends, too. And, in my opinion, social media tools make introductions and networking easier – like sharing a virtual cup of coffee.
Thanks Jeff and you raise what I think is the initial thought that should come to mind: is this coffee chat for collaboration’s sake or a meeting for competitive reconnaissance? I’m fully on board with meetings where we come together and bring something of value to the table, and can collaborate in a more dynamic way than we could solo. Those meetings usually reveal themselves early on, though, IME. The tone is different, the request is more like, “I want to meet and talk to you about a project you might be interested in working with me on.” Those are great moments. In either scenario, we have to be more guarded — not only for what we say, but for what we spend in time and energy. Those lopsided relationships are exhausting!
I love how you finish this up, too, and your reminder that relationships of all kinds are necessary, because indeed they are. My money is on the trust-based ones
Deb – There’s another thought I’ve been bouncing around. It involves blogging and intellectual capital. I’ve actually been blogging less — not blogging on a some topics or business practices. Reason? It’s like giving away 25 years of experience for free. And I’ve seen my blog material “borrowed.” That said, I know there are two sides to this. I know that my blogs do help people connect with me or my thinking. To come full circle, it helps to have trusted relationships to bounce around thoughts just like this.
When you wrote “borrowed”, I knew exactly what you meant. It’s a sad thing that people are not original enough to develop their own content and then stoop to thievery. I had someone local actually ask me to “fluff” content they sent me so they could add it to their website. Skeptical of what I received (it looked quite finished to me, not draft-like at all), I dumped part of it into a search, and VOILA — the content belonged to their competitor. How sleazy. That said, I give away ideas in my blog, but it’s far from what an actual consulting session consists of. My thinking is potential clients and other professionals need to have some kind of idea as to my skills and capabilities, so this is a place for them to sort of “test drive” me. Part of my work here is to establish some trust and dialogue get people thinking about things a bit. Once in awhile, I get lucky and have some great conversations like this one
Deb,
This is something that I have happen all the time. Had one woman act like my best friend right up until I gave her the information she needed, now she doesn’t speak to me and markets herself up against me.
I needed to read this because so far in business, I’ve given away more work/advice than I’ve sold. I need to learn from this.
Thanks!
Angela, ugh, that’s one of those worst case scenarios, and I’m sorry you’ve experienced it. There’s this awful sense of betrayal, coupled with a bit of sadness and anger. Why would a person do something like this and why did they think so little of you? Sadly, I’ve empowered my share of competitors this way and really, it’s no different than a fellow employee running around taking credit for your work or ideas. People like this are eventually exposed, sometimes simply because their slight knowledge doesn’t compare to your deep knowledge.
Stand your ground and if you get tempted, call me and I’ll talk you out of it
Deb – this is a GREAT post! As you said, I’m happy to provide “some” assistance, as long as they don’t try to pick my brain dry. I let people know that I provide a complimentary one-hour BASIC consultation, then charge for any additional support. That way, they know going into it that they won’t get a whole bunch of great info for nothin’!
Thanks much, Deb. I provide a similar arrangement, a very basic consult so they get the sense of what can come from a formal consult. When they start prying too much, I know it’s probably time to either schedule an actual consult or wrap up and cut my losses. My feeling is they need to make the financial commitment for two reasons: one, so I’m providing the best guidance and thorough information possible, without reservations on my own part; and two so they are committing to the the investment in their own business, and accepting ownership of the fact that expertise for their benefit has a pricetag. So far, so good
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Deb Kolaras, Donna Feldman. Donna Feldman said: Great tip from @BizCoachDeb >Why Buy the Cow? – http://bit.ly/d9yM6S [...]
I appreciate the feedback Donna, thank you. Hope it helps another freelancer out there