Sharing Has to Pay Off Eventually, Right?

Dogbert: I like to con people. And I like to insult people. If you combine con & insult, you get consult!

- Scott Adams

Leave it to my other conscience to post that. : )

I do, but it’s business software, and I wish I was doing it in new media land, because I think a bit of evangelism could save many a Dell, Kryptonite or traditional media company from screwing up in front of the fastest growing audience in the world. It would also get them, you know, talking to their customers.

Also, where’s the line drawn between freelancing and consulting? Is there one, or is it just the same thing but for different kinds of customer?

My wife, Katrina, said that her perspective is that I like to give things to people like me, to the little guys trying to figure things out, but that I should charge the likes of Starbucks or Intel.

Makes sense to me.

Hell, I could show DELL how to get their customers’ love.

I’m a consultant, but I’m not self-employed, if that’s any help.

I look at it this way: sure, I will discuss things for free with people, even non-customers, but if I need to do some research or spend any significant time working in order to discuss the matter, then I must be paid for that or I will have to politely back out of the conversation.

If the discussion leads to a plan for something to be implemented, I’d try to get that job too (but without taking anything for granted). Since I’ve proven my expertise and shown that I have a plan already in the earlier discussion, it’s a very strong sales position to be in.

It’s a well-proven and, I think, a good policy to share knowledge, but to charge for work.

I like to give things to people like me, to the little guys trying to figure things out, but that I should charge the likes of Starbucks or Intel.

Makes sense to me.

That doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t care if my customer is a one-man start-up or a much maligned multinational: a job is a job, and every customer gets 100% of my very best effort, and pays the same rates for my quite fantastic work.

Mark- Thanks for your perspective. I don’t know many consultants, and surely don’t know much about the business. Your perspective is interesting. I’ll have to think more about it.

I’m in the consulting industry, too. As I see it, there are two variables to the share-vs-sell criteria, (both have been touched on already): The means of the recipient and the amount of effort needed. When I have to make these kind of decisions I tend to lump the request into one of four groups based on this:

+High effort/High means – charge
+High effort/Low means – depends on the recipient. Interesting work or really worthy causes might make it worthwhile to share at this level, but I am hesitant to make commitments otherwise.
+Low effort/High means – try to charge, or leverage for more business (see Mark M’s response).
+Low effort/Low means – share

To be clear, low effort does NOT mean low quality. Hope this adds more than it confuses :)

Well…. it depends. I’m a Marketing-Consultant and enjoy sharing my knowledge just like you do. My personal motto is (in German) “Knowledge spreads when divided”. I have no problems with helping people out with a tip or hint.

BUT

when I feel that the other person is just “sucking my knowledge” and isn’t willing to share his or her knowledge either, I immediately stop. Plus: I have to make my living from consulting – so there’s always a point from where on I say: It was free up to now but if you want to know more I got to charge you.

Birgit

Hi Matt- That’s a neat model, and I understand what you’re saying about low effort. It just means stuff you can knock out fairly easily without breaking a sweat.

Guten Abend, Birgit– Danke. I’m thankful for your perspective. Sucking one’s knowledge makes sense. I have a person like that offline, and I can see where it’d be smarter to say that I’ve used up all my free advice, and that the rest will have to cost?

How do people handle that? What do you say? Especially where I give so much away for free, how do I on-ramp the charging part?

For me, it comes down to the economic outcome of the results. I’ve invested a number of years developing my skills and knowledge. I expect to be rewarded if someone else benefits economically from my efforts.

For instance, if a neighbor or friend is having a problem with their firewall or their home system, I’ll just help for free.

However, if the outcome of what I do helps someone else make money, I want a cut. If I repair the firewall for a business, the business benefits. I want a cut of that benefit, since I enabled it.

Now THAT makes sense to me, Will. Now all I have is to figure out the tricky understanding of how to charge for my time when I’ve got so litle time available.

Chris, welcome to the blog-commenting conversation. Good to have you here. It’s nice to see you continuing to drive the conversation in the comments are as well.

My perspective: I’m trying to break into new-media consulting on the side. I’ve been talking with a company about starting blogging informally for a few months. Lots of “sharing” from my end. Now the company is finally ready to move forward on a blog, and so now I’ll be charging :)

I agree that it’s not always easy to know where sharing for free ends and consulting for pay begins.

It’s very helpful to read other others are handling this question.

–Bryan Person
Blog: Bryper.com
Podcast: NewCommRoad.com

Hi all, first time on this site. I’m a consultant for a firm and the responses so far have been very interesting and I’d say aligned with what I try to keep in mind. (I’m in a writing mood, so this will be somewhat of a brain dump)

My approach tends to be an accumulation of the previous replies. First off, with consulting it’s critical to keep in mind that your time is your most valuable asset. Furthermore, discretion over your time is your most challenging and profitable action to manage. I’ll explain.

Everyone that speaks with you is ultimately seeking your experience; some will appreciate it more than others, mentally or monetarily. It is your job to exercise discretion immediately over whether or not to share your time with this person at all. Opportunity costs come into play heavily in this area. If you spend 30-45 minutes helping to explain something, that results in an opportunity cost for your business or productivity in general. In addition, you will most likely not *instantly* forget about the conversation and be somewhat preoccupied by it for some time after, which also impacts your efficiency. Make sense?

So I feel it’s important to pre-establish criteria to determine how you approach “low effort” discussions/tasks so that you aren’t blind-sided by things that started out as you ‘being nice’ and drag on. Also remember, most people that ask you for information are more interested about the information than they are about your time; especially people close to you.

So now that I’ve established a somewhat negative post (lol) I’ll bring it back full circle. What approach works? Here are my criteria for sharing my time and still controlling how and where I give it:

1.) Who is asking of my time? Do I know this person? Do I have anything vested in them? (This is critical, because it’s much easier to say no once you are able to consider them a stranger) Do they have anything vested in me? (existing client / family) How did they find you? (reference)

2.) What’s the topic? Is this something I’ve spent years perfecting my knowledge on that I’m ready to share willingly to some stranger? Is this something that I have partial information on and may end up only marginally helpful anyway, and possibly even put your reputation in question?

3.) What do they want from me? Sometimes it’s just a talk, other times it requires you doing additional work, or research or w/e.

So by this point, we’ve been respectful and listened up to this point, possibly with some thoughtful questions. Now it’s time to exercise control over your time…

4.) Do I want to engage in this at this time? or any time in the near future? Sometimes you have more important things on your plate that must take priority.

5.) Does this person seem knowledgeable at all on this subject? Do they seem like they might have a high aptitude in this area? These are also very important to estimate YOUR committment to them. People often say “Can I talk to you about podcasting for a few minutes?” Which sounds harmless, until you find out they want to get started and don’t know what podcasting is and happen to have a Win98 box as their primary PC.

6.) How much time do you really think that this person needs? Then multiply by 25%. People understimate more often than not. Better to be pleasantly suprised than ripping your hair out.

7.) How much time do you really have to spare for this type of opportunity?

8.) Reevaluate 1-7 again now that you have thought the whole thing through.

9.) Decide.

Hopefully this formula is helpful; I know it’s verbose.

So considering what I’ve seen from the previous posters, which I’ve agreed with almost completely, here’s my take.

To steal from Matt (and slightly modify):
+High effort/High means – Could be profitable, could be the worst neverending tech support battle of your life. Usually I don’t engage in these unless the person respects the fact that they have alot to learn and it’s not the technology that’s ‘stupid’ but rather they have yet to encounter how to properly extract value.

+High effort/Low means – depends on the recipient. Interesting work or really worthy causes might make it worthwhile to share at this level, but I am hesitant to make commitments otherwise. – Agreed, see Step1,2

+Low effort/High means – try to charge, or leverage for more business (see Mark M’s response). – Again on this it’s about the person. High means people have a way of letting money cloud your judgement on where you should spend your time.

+Low effort/Low means – Depends on the person again, step 1. Low means people can be your most loyal people, but also the biggest leeches.

To reference Will… considering economics makes sense but can really hurt you in the long run, depending on the person/company. You don’t want to be branded as money hungry from the start. I constantly help prospects with their environments via advice or work because it establishes two things: trust and I get an inside track on additional areas of opportunity. You must not give them everything for free, or you’ll lose out. Give them enough to get by on, but leave some tricks up your sleeve so you still are of value. Next time, they may have a much larger opportunity and usually (if you have managed their expectations correctly from the start) won’t have problems paying you appropriately.

Obviously, this last section is in alignment with Bryan’s post.

All of the comments left above have been right on, and I hope this has been helpful for those still reading this.lol

So to sum up, the sooner you can get an idea of the person/company you’re dealing with, the more efficient and rewarding your time will be spent. Remember, there’s nothing worse than feeling you’ve wasted your time on a task… except finding out the person/company doesn’t even appreciate it.

Good luck!

Hi Sami-

Wow! Thanks for all the time and consideration you put into this post. You’re clearly a thoughtful person, and I’m thankful for your effort.

Having spent several hours on projects for my day job that ended up in no change, and sometimes no appreciation, I can see how this would hurt even more if I were a consultant looking for pay for my time.

I like your formula and will try to implement it. Don’t be surprised if I go back and ask a few more questions.

Wow. Thanks!