23: When You Are Asked to Work for Free

Jaz 0:01
Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. saddle up for a gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you’ll learn how to tame your wild business beast, with tips, techniques, and tools that will take overwhelm to obedience school, and have you wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts, Kim Beer, and Cara Taylor Swift.

Kimberly Beer 0:23
Hey there business animals. It’s

Kim with Be More Business

Cara Taylor Swift 0:26
and Cara with Fast Horse Photography,

Kimberly Beer 0:28
and welcome to another episode of The Business Animal. So I want to ask you a question really quickly. And I want you to be honest with me not you Cara. our listeners Cara is looking at me like I’m ready for the question.

Cara Taylor Swift 0:39
Yeah, bring it on.

Kimberly Beer 0:40
Have you ever been asked to work for free? And I can guarantee you probably everybody who’s listening to this is raising their hand or nodding their head. And I can tell you I have and I Cara you have as well. Right?

Cara Taylor Swift 0:54
And if you haven’t been asked to work for free, get ready because it’s coming. That’s just a matter of factly. Right? So that’s what this episode is all about.

Kimberly Beer 1:02
That’s what this episode is all about is how do you negotiate navigate this in your business? How do you make sure you’re getting well compensated? And how do you know if an opportunity comes along and there’s not a monetary reward attached to it? How do you decide if that’s something that you want to say yes to or that you want to say no to. So our big three for this episode is number one, you really need to examine that opportunity and what it’s going to net you in the end. So cost versus benefit and to know when the situation may not be a good fit for you and to know when it is a good fit for you. So we’re going to talk about that first. Because there’s a lot to cover there. Number two of the big three for this episode is if money is off the table, and you still want to do whatever it is you’ve been asked to do, there are ways to shift that benefit to things that are not necessarily connected with money. So we’re going to give you some great ideas about how to proceed if you do want to take advantage of an opportunity that is not paid monetarily. And then the final thing that we’re going to talk about of the Big Three today is how to focus on the value that you bring to the equation and the value that your potential customer needs to realize or invest in order to get to their specific goal. And example of this is have you ever signed up for a free course that somebody offers, and then you never even really log in? Maybe you log in and watch the first little episode of it. But then because you as the consumer didn’t pay for it, you don’t really value what’s there. That’s a very real thing in entrepreneurship and business. And as entrepreneurs, we need to get really aware of that and how we’re going to shift that energy. So let’s start by talking about what will that free opportunity net you and what is it going to cost you to be able to take advantage of that opportunity? I guess first let’s back up a second. Cara has this wonderful list. I love Cara’s lists. She has this wonderful list of what does it actually look like when people ask you to work for free. And I’m gonna let you read your list, Cara because it’s pretty good. And I have heard every single one of these

Cara Taylor Swift 3:18
most I think small business owners and any of us working with animals and animal based industry have

probably heard these and if you haven’t, we want you to be prepared for when they come your way. Some of the ways that people will ask you to work for free sounds like and maybe you guys have heard this, I can’t pay you but you will get great exposure. Right Kim?

Kimberly Beer 3:38
I love that statement. I love statement. You know exposure sounds great

Cara Taylor Swift 3:43
exposure sounds great. And last time I was at the grocery store and he let me pay with exposure. It was amazing. I was able to get milk and bread and all those things exposure.

Kimberly Beer 3:52
I want to know where your grocery store is. I’ve tried to pay my business loan with exposure and my banker was like, I think I’m gonna need actual dollars and cents. There’s so your exposure thing was nice, but and I appreciate how cool that project looks, but I’m gonna need some money for it.

Cara Taylor Swift 4:10
Exactly. Okay, so another another one that I’ve heard and that probably some of you guys have heard is I don’t have a budget for this project. Right. So I’ve had people come to me, they’ve got a budget for everything else in the projects, but they don’t have a budget for the photography. Oh, that’s

Kimberly Beer 4:31
out. Ouch, ouch.

Cara Taylor Swift 4:33
So that hurts a little bit. Yeah, that’s leaves a sting. And then here’s another one that you guys might have heard. We’re just getting started and we don’t have any money yet. Oh, so maybe they’re a new business or they’ve got a new project and they’re just getting going man and they just need whatever you provide for free because they don’t have any money to pay you. Ouch, that one hurts too.

Kimberly Beer 4:55
It does. It really does.

Cara Taylor Swift 4:57
So other things that we have heard and you guys probably have to Since we’re friends, so maybe this is coming from a friend, or family member, or just a pal in the community that is maybe trying to work your way if the friendship angle and get a service for free or product for free.

Kimberly Beer 5:15
Yeah, so this shows up for me over lunch with one of my friends. That’s like, Oh, I’m like, I haven’t seen him in forever. And they invite me to lunch. And then halfway through lunch, there’s this little, little statement of, you know, I’ve been considering starting a business and I was just curious in your professional opinion. And then usually, whatever follows, that is a paid consulting advice, right. And there’s a lot of times they made me pay for my own lunch. After that.

Cara Taylor Swift 5:47
Now, this next one could be potential type of compensation. So they might say something like, I’ll trade you one service for another. So we’ll talk about that a little bit, because that is potentially compensation on the table. And then another one that this one always just really, really gets under my skin, is when someone will ask me to do something for free. And then they’ll say, Well, there are lots of other people who will do this for free. Oh, yeah. So you probably have heard that at some point. And if you haven’t, it’s coming. Yeah. And just think about so the reason I put this list together, is because if you haven’t heard these before, then you probably will at some point, but chances are you have heard these before. So we want to talk about where these are coming from great ways to respond and kind of how to how to make decisions about that for yourself. Yeah,

Kimberly Beer 6:38
and I and I think that’s so important to be able to do that. And that brings me to a great meme that I saw on Facebook the other day that was in one of my freelance groups. And I just want to read this really quickly. Because it’s, it’s how to politely say, Sorry, I’m not doing that for free, because we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about why you should do some things for free. So but let’s start with how do you politely say, No, I’m not doing that for free. And in the meme, it says, one way you can do that is thanks so much for considering me please see here a link for the services and the price packages that I offer. Let me know if you have any questions. I mean, pretty straightforward. Right. The next one is this sounds like a great opportunity. Thank you for thinking of me, are you able to confirm this is a paid opportunity? So if you’re not sure, you know, since we’re friends, and then ask that question number three is, I appreciate you thinking of me for this opportunity. Unfortunately, I’m unable to take on any unpaid projects at the moment. But I’ll circle back if that changes. It’s a really nice way to tell people yeah, I’m not really in the present mind to be able to take something for free. And then the fourth one that was in the meme is thanks for reaching out, I typically charge a flat fee for this kind of advice. So I’m unable to answer this via in this example, DMS, but I’ll drop a link below where you can book a consultation with me and then your consultation should be charged. So those are some really nice ways to just simply say, I’m not going to do this. And Cara and I in our show prep. I’ll I’ll give you one more. That’s my own. She asked me how do you say when that’s your friend over lunch? And you head down the path of answering maybe a question that they’ve asked, and now you’re in it, and they start asking a whole lot more? How do you start to shift that conversation into something that you could get paid for?

Cara Taylor Swift 8:31
Right? Because you’ve opened the box? You’ve opened Pandora’s box, as you said,

Cara Taylor Swift 8:35
Yeah, right. you’ve answered the question. And then the questions keep coming. And at some point, it starts to really broach territory that you typically would be paid for. Yep. So I just wanted to hear how you typically handle that.

Kimberly Beer 8:47
Yeah. And as a consultant as a person who is paid to share their knowledge, this happens to me a lot. So what I normally do is I go ahead and give what I feel is appropriate for that situation. And then what I will do is all once it starts to bridge into something that I feel like, Hey, this is stepping over a line, you know, I’ve given and now I need to receive back for that. I will generally say something like you know, I have a course coming up this fall that is going to cover all of these topics. And it would be really good for you. If you want to go deeper on this to be able to enroll for that course, I’ll email you the information so that you can enroll for it usually shuts him down right there. The other thing that I will do is I’ll say if you’re interested, I’ll be happy to send you information on my one on one packages. And we can go over a letter of agreement that is going to work for you on what level of commitment you’re willing to make with this particular project or topic. So that really helps me be able to politely just move that into this needs to become a paid situation. And I know we’re spending a lot of time talking about service providers. But those of you who have products, you’re going to ask to give stuff away as well. And you need to know how to move that to another conversation where you might say, Well, I don’t offer our product for free, but I do have a payment plan or I do have some test samples that I could maybe send you that I’ll collect later or something like that. So there’s plenty of ways to politely and respectfully and with good business acumen, be able to get yourself out of the situation where you’re giving away too much.

Cara Taylor Swift 10:33
And if you’re somebody that gets a little anxious about saying no, or you need to kind of think through what you’re going to say, when that situation comes up, it’s totally okay to sit down and jot some of these things down so that you’re ready practice saying them, I used to say that all the time, when I was working in a different field, I would say to them, you know, so this could be a tough conversation that you’re going to be uncomfortable having, at some point, go ahead and practice having those words come out of your mouth. So you feel confident saying that when you need to. I’m a big, big proponent of that. So start writing, writing some of these ideas down if you need to, that’s an excellent idea,

Kimberly Beer 11:07
I think where this conversation starts to get a little bit more slippery is when we start to get into some of those opportunities that you’ve been asked to do for, quote, unquote, free, but there are opportunities you really want to do. So a lot of times those cut and dried ones that you would use those polite, say know things to or the friend over lunch, you know, it’s easy to be able to kind of practice that as Cara said, and learn how to sidestep it. But there are going to be times in your business that you’re going to be approached by somebody that is a good opportunity, or looks like a good opportunity on the surface. And you are going to want to take a look at that and say this may actually be something that I want to do in my own business. This showed up years and years ago, for me being asked to speak as a volunteer for score, which puts me in front of a great many entrepreneurs who are my exact target market, but I speak six, eight times a year, I give workshops for score, I do not get paid, I do that as a volunteer. And it’s a ton of work for me. But I’ve discovered over the years, it puts me in front of my target market, I do get clients out of that. And what’s more is I’ve made these great networking relationships with the people at score, and they give me the best referrals to other speaking engagements to other organizations and in across the country. So it has been hugely beneficial. I’ve spoken at some of their bigger conferences, so I get this little checkmark on my resume that people can really appreciate. So it’s carried me a really long way in return for that volunteer activity or an unpaid speaking activity. So I think there are times in your business, you’re going to run up against that. And we want to give you some ideas around how you can navigate that to determine if it’s a really good opportunity for you to take advantage of. Or if it’s something that you maybe want to move past Cara, what do you think about that? Well, I

Cara Taylor Swift 13:18
think that works really well, for the first of our big three, you know, really thinking about does this move you down the road to your goals? You know, does it get you there and actually sitting down and thinking about what are the benefits of that, you know, the cost versus the benefit analysis? So like really thinking about what this is going to cost you does it take away opportunities for you to create income somewhere else? versus the benefits of, you know, what are the potential benefits of you speaking for SCORE, like, you know, the things that have come from that. So I think that’s the big thing is just really sitting down and thinking about that opportunity? What are the potentials from that in the end. So I think that you have to be wary of the situation, especially if you’re new to business or your new a new entrepreneur, because there will be people out there that see you as new, they see you as overly eager and they really may attempt to take advantage of that situation. I you know, as a photographer, when I was first starting out, I certainly had people that would have me come and you know, want me to shoot things for free. And when I was suddenly in a situation where you know, my time was I was so busy and I had to start charging for things they moved right down the road to the next new photographer that was ready to shoot for free, you know, so you know, just be wary of that. And you know, we were talking earlier you know, if it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, if you’re going to be resentful about it. If you’re going to have those icky feelings that you know make you not want to do the job then it’s probably not a great way for you to go.

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Kimberly Beer 15:35
Absolutely, and those icky feelings. So I want to address that a little bit further. Because I think this happens a lot, especially to new entrepreneurs who are very hungry, right, you’ve got your you got your business set up, you really want to be doing business, you want to be working with clients, you want to be selling your product, and you’re twiddling your thumbs waiting for people to show up. Because there’s this period of time, there’s this lag period between when you create your business, and when your business actually starts to become a business. And if if somebody approaches you with one of these opportunities, during that time, it’s really tempting to take it because you may think, Oh, I’m going to get some good experience out of it. Or I’m gonna, you know, be able to practice what it is that I’m doing. And so many of my clients are in mission based businesses where their highest value to be able to do whatever it is that they’ve chosen as their business. So they really want to be doing it. Well, what happens in this situation, and has happened to me personally, because I’ve floated down this river in my early years of my business is you’ll you’ll take that opportunity. And maybe you’ll think, Okay, well, as Cara pointed out to me, during our show prep, you know, people think, well, this is a good practice opportunity. And because I’m not being paid for it, I don’t have to take it as seriously. Well, what happens is that the next week, maybe maybe you get the real client, somebody who’s really willing to pay you your full fee. And the project that you just took on suddenly is not important anymore, this other person who’s paying you a lot more money takes priority as well, it should. But here’s the problem, the person you booked that other job with and said that you would do it for free or low cost, they don’t have a positive experience with your business. And what happened to me is that those people would go out it usually the mistake is the ones that are the most vocal, and they’ll go out and tell everybody what that you’re irresponsible that you didn’t do what you said you were going to do that your work wasn’t of the top quality that it needed to be, and all of those things. So if you’re in that situation where you’re like, I really want to be working, and I want to practice and I need some more experience, what I recommend you do or if you’re worried, you’re gonna be able to complete the job that you take on is to be very upfront and clear with the person that you’re working with. That’s the situation and go ahead and charge them. And if you do not meet expectations, then refund their money and help them find someone else to do what you were committed to do, then you go out at least maybe not with a happy customer, but you go out with a customer who at least can respect you and not bad talk you to other people and you go out with professional respect for yourself that you handle the situation as best you could. So that is a really, really slippery slope that I think almost all of us have gotten ourselves on at some point in time. And I just want to keep people warned, you know, be really mindful about taking that on. And if the reason is that you really want to practice or that you’re really looking for the work, I highly consider passing that opportunity or charging something for it and being willing to refund that. What do you think about that, Cara?

Cara Taylor Swift 18:50
Yeah, I say just because you chose to work for free, or they asked you to work for free doesn’t free them or free anyone from crappy word of mouth, you know, or crappy testimonials. I mean, it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to automatically get an amazing testimonial because you chose to work for free, or that they’re going to speak so highly of you to everyone down the line. You know, if you work for free, and you know, maybe you half-assed the job or something, then they you’re still gonna share that experience with all the people that come in contact with you. And that does nothing to move your business forward. So for me, if money is off the table and you still want to do the job, then you’ve got to think of the other compensation opportunities that are out there. Because in my experience, anytime that I’ve been asked to work for free, and I have chosen to take that job or to take on that project, there are a lot of other ways that I have been able to pull in some form of compensation that makes it so that when I’m motivated to do the job, that I don’t have an icky feeling that I feel good about it and that both parties feel really good at the end of it. Kim, do we want to go through some of those options right now?

Kimberly Beer 19:55
Absolutely we do because I think these are all really important things. to consider and I particularly the first one is my favorite, which is that they have to leave a testimonial. One of the things that a lot of the SCORE people come in I have a lot of people come in to score that are really bootstrapping hard on their business because they found score because score offers free mentorship, right? So a lot of times, they don’t have a budget to have a consultant. And they’ll ask if I can consult for 30 minutes, and I’m very clear about how long of time I’m going to spend with them. It’s 30 minutes, or 45 or an hour, or whatever it is. And I tell them up front. And this is exactly what I say, if you get benefit out of this particular session, I’m going to send you a link. And I would like you to go to my Google reviews. And I want you to leave me a review, not stars, I want you to actually type out what the benefit is that you got from working with me for this 30 minutes or 45 minutes, it’s been good for my business, it’s been good for me, it makes me feel like I was compensated for that time that I spent with them. And I think they value it enough because it regenerates in their head, what the benefit was that they got from the time they spent with me, that one’s my favorite we can go on there’s more Cara came up with a whole list for y’all.

Cara Taylor Swift 21:12
Of course I did you know, I’m the list person. So the big. So the big thing is, is your professional business, right, so you’re probably going to have some kind of contract with whoever you’re working with, or some kind of agreement. So I always do written agreements with all of my paid clients, right. So why when I shift to doing something for free, there is opportunity there to do written agreements as well. So instead of writing in the money that they’re going to pay, then you could write in instead, the other options that you guys have agreed upon. So some of those would be like Kim mentioned, leaving an awesome testimonial at the places that you need them to leave a testimonial so that you can have that for your website, you can have it for your social media, you can have it for your brochures, whatever you’re putting out into the world. But some of the other alternatives might be can they list you as an event sponsor at their events? You know, can they get you a big banner, like they get everyone else? Can they add you to their website with a clickable link to your website? Can they if there’s an event happening, you know, all their future events that are you know, for a certain period of time, can they make sure that your business card is in the packet that your materials are in the packet, you know that you’re listed for me as the photographer, I might be listed as the event photographer or as their go to photographer something along those lines? Can they write a blog post about your business? I mean, think if they don’t have the money to pay it, but maybe they’ve got the time to sit down and write an awesome blog post that can help you out with your SEO that can be on their website that you can share to your website. If they have an influence around some kind of printed marketing, can they get an advertisement for you somewhere? Can they share an advertisement that they’re already paying with you and mention you in that advertisement? What is their audience look like? Can they make a connection for you with their audience, like Kim was saying, you know, she speaks for SCORE. So they have made space in front of their center of influence for her to talk about her business and to share what she does or to educate on a topic to bring in more business. So how that might look for me as a photographer is I might have a barn that needs new marketing images, they might ask me to come and shoot some images for a new project that they’re working on their budget is they come to me and they said they don’t have a budget for the photography side of it. Okay, so how do we make that up? Well, maybe they can get a handful of their borders or their clients to book sessions with me. And once they reach that criteria, then I’m happy to go out and shoot marketing images for them. So I look at alternative compensation. Another option is something that you know, you would certainly want to talk to your accountant or your CPA about is the dollar for dollar product and service trade. I have certainly done work for free riding lessons I’ve done work for my farrier, where I’ve gotten you know farrier work done. I’ve done photography work for equine dentists. I’ve done, you know, photography work for veterinarian services. So you think about, you know, what is that? Right? I mean, we’ve done that I’ve done photography work for free product. So it just kind of depends on if that has value to you, and it works for your business, if it makes sense. So I always say there are lots of options out there that you don’t have to consider it completely free. Some other examples are can you learn something that you can’t learn anywhere else? Like maybe you have the opportunity to shoot or to do that job with equipment that you’ve never had the opportunity to work with before or to mentor with someone and work alongside or under someone for free but you’re learning from them and you’re getting access to pick their brain and to talk through things with them. A big one is is there an opportunity to gain some kind of impressive addition to your resume if you’ve never been a published artists before and suddenly you have an opportunity to be a published artists that might be worth doing at a reduced price or a free price? So that you can then put that on your resume or to get an opportunity to work for a really well known, established business or celebrity endorsement. like think about some of those things, guess what, guys, that’s what exposure looks like if you get to work for an actual big business that has a huge center of influence or a celebrity endorsement. That’s exposure. That makes sense, right? Because you’re actually able to say to them, talk to me about what this exposure looks like, you know, how big is your audience? How many people are going to see this? You know, because you can put some value to that versus when I have an influencer call me and I put influencer in quotation marks nothing against influencers, folks, but you got to stop asking for free stuff. It’s not right. So influencers that contact you and say, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pay you in exposure, we’ll talk to me about your audience, okay, you have that number of audience that’s not going to do anything for me or your audience, is not an audience that is ever going to bring me work because those people are not people that typically navigate in the line of work that I do. So I can get a little bit soapboxing on this. But there are other forms of compensation that can be written into agreements that can still bring you benefit if you choose to work for free. So keep that in mind.

Kimberly Beer 26:16
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I want to go back and revisit the endorsement piece of things. Because I see this happen a lot. In my years in the equine industry, especially when I work with product oriented businesses, it’s a less slippery slope for service people. But in this particular vein, for the rest of them, service people really fall into the traps. But the product people they do fall into this endorsement trap a lot when you’re looking at somebody to endorse your product. And it’s a common thing in all industries, where there’s influencers, which thanks to social media is all of them now is to give the influencer a product for no cost. And then to see kind of how that person would be able to endorse it and use your product. People do follow that consumers do follow those influencers, and they do purchase the products that they endorse. So there’s a lot of validity to you giving away product to an endorser or to see if that’s going to be a good fit. But there also has to be some responsibility on your behalf to make sure one as Cara said that, that influencers audience that that endorsers audience is going to match who you want to work with. So if you make a product that really works best in the western horse industry, and you hand it to a person who is a uset, writer for The showjumping team not going to be a good fit, right. So because there are people that follow them, and redmire them are not going to be the people buying your product, that was a really obvious example, it can get a lot more subtle than that. So you need to take some time and research that a good endorser will have those packages available to you that explain the demographic of their market that talk about what their different packages are, that would be available for endorsement when we get down to this free level, because a lot of endorsements are paid. But when we get to the free level, the person may not have that quite yet. So you’ve got to do a little bit more research on them and make sure it’s gonna be good. I am all for the I don’t like the word contract. But I do like letter of agreement. I’m all for putting what you expect that endorser to do in writing and exactly what you’re responsible for, what they’re responsible for, and how things are going to be split up and what’s going to happen if those items are not followed through one. So that’s just good business. But as far as choosing who you want to provide your talent and treasure to for no cost. My big litmus test is are they a center of influence? Is this individual or organization going to be able to influence or allow me to influence a large number of people that are in my specific target market, and that shifts for every one of you out there. And the reason why we preach so much in marketing classes to get to know who your customer is, because that’s the step and knowing if this is a good opportunity, or an opportunity that you should just pass on.

Cara Taylor Swift 29:50
You only have a certain amount of time and free time and ability to do things for free. So you really have to be thoughtful and strategic about it. And you know, it’s ok to say to people I’m sorry, I do sometimes do pro bono work or I do give things for free. But I’ve capped for this year or this time period, you know, check back with me at another time.

Kimberly Beer 30:10
I love that statement too. And also another thing too, and this is going to kind of bring us in if we’re complete with number two, it’s going to bring us into number three. But a nice bridge to that is I get approached by again, a lot of people that are bootstrapping up businesses that I really want to help and they have to value what I provide to them. Otherwise, they don’t take any action on it. And my currency is information. So what I provide as a service is his information. And a lot of times it to do list. But those things are important. There are things I’ve learned from the school of hard knocks there, there are things that are proven other places in the world, and I know them inside and out. And it’s not too difficult for me to just spew them out randomly. However, if you don’t from the other end of that, take that seriously and invest in it, then people don’t act on it. So I’ve spent my time they’ve spent theirs and nothing ever gets done. And what we just talked about was kind of shifting that benefit. And instead of using the word free eggs, for example, when we give away a place at a one of our journeys or a retreat or something like that, I never say we’re giving it away, I always say it’s provided by a scholarship, because at least and then it has some type of monetary value attached to it. And the person that is on the other side of it takes it more seriously. And they’ll actually invest and start to realize and move towards their goal. Because they know that that has value free doesn’t have any value, the number of uncompleted free courses that are floating around out in the world that I bet you all have signed up for to it tells you that that is a lead magnet for you to get an email address, if you really want to make a difference in people’s lives, or you really want to change things up doing things for free a lot of times does not benefit the person on the other end,

Cara Taylor Swift 32:11
you know, when you’re putting together that agreement, like just because you’re offering something to them for free that you typically would charge for even put that in the agreement, like put the valued at in there, because I think people need to see you know that they’re getting, you know, a $2500 course, or they’re getting a package that you typically would charge that for, like in my contract that I do with all my clients. Typically if I’m doing a discount, or I’m waiving something, the amount is there. And it shows it as being waived for whatever purpose that is because I think they need to see that. And it needs to be valued. And you know, even if you’re you’re doing a donation to a nonprofit, like you still need to show the value, because that may be a tax write off for you. I mean, all of that needs to be documented in a way that makes sense.

Kimberly Beer 33:00
Well, and if you ever want proof that people don’t value things that they get for free, both Cara I have stories for me, I gave away. During COVID, I was asked to do a lot of like helping with the organizations that I do a lot of speaking for live. And they really were trying to get people to adopt zoom. Right. So then we had giveaways. So I donated a bunch of consulting sessions to various different organizations in the process of that, that people could win if they showed up for the zoom session. And it all worked. People now show up for zoom, right. But I gave away a boatload of those and only one person actually took advantage of it. So that free thing the things that you when the things that are free, they just don’t always mean something to someone on the other end. And I know Cara, you have similar situations where you’ve donated photoshoots, and people just don’t follow through and get it that’s a big deal to me, because I was like completely committed to giving this stuff away and helping people and it keeps me in line with my mission and in line with my values and nobody shows up. And that’s kind of wah wah let down. It’s a part of, of being able to create value for people and alternatives to this if you if somebody says I really just don’t have the money, you know, you can offer payment plans, if it’s if it’s something you just have your heart set on that you really want to do for this individual or this organization. You know, do something with the trade like we mentioned in the second of the Big Three, or do something that would help that specific individual and if at the very bottom, if you are going to give it away for free. Make sure that you don’t have a contract of some variety or maybe change the wording a little bit to express like the scholarship piece and I’ll be honest, most of the scholarships for us are paid by me. So it It’s all good. But it’s a mindset, right? It’s just it’s a different thing. I’m not giving it away. It’s not free, but it’s paid for by somebody. And in most cases, it’s paid for my me as the business owner.

Cara Taylor Swift 35:12
Yeah, that was a really good point, Kim and I was just sitting here, as you were talking, thinking about some of the other ways that I have worked with folks who wanted free services. And a couple other great examples include having them donate to a charity, in your name and your business’s name. And also, if you have a special project coming up, like I always need assistants or models, you know, having them donate their time to work in your business in some way. So just just thinking about some of these those alternatives. And I would love to hear from our audience, from folks who listen to this episode. Are there other ways that you guys have done or have participated in in exchange for working for free? So I would love to hear about some of the other alternative compensation options that you guys have considered. So why don’t after you listen to this episode, if you’ve got something great to share, reach out to us on one of our social media platforms. And let us know what has worked for you. I think our audience would really love that. And there’s a lot of people out there right now, that if they haven’t been asked already, they’re about to be asked to work for free. So I think that that they would benefit from that knowledge. Absolutely, I do as well. And thank you all for tuning in with us today.

Kimberly Beer 36:21
We hope that we have convinced you to one not work for free at all have some type of compensation and to if you do decide to proceed that you do so very mindfully, and with a lot of check marks in place that you know that you’re going to get benefit out of what you do, so that you can happily and joyfully sustain your business. We will see you all next week and have a great weekend between

Jaz 36:45
thanks for listening to this episode of The Business Animal. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you learned something today, leave us a review. To learn more. Find us at The Business animal.com we’d love to hear from you. Until next time, keep your business well trained with The Business Animal

Transcribed by https://otter.ai