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I’m getting better at saying no when I get asked ‘can I pick your brain?’<\/p>\nI’m getting better at saying no when I get asked ‘can I pick your brain?’<\/p>\n
by Sharon Hayes<\/a><\/p>\n In a typical day, I get anywhere from 10 to 50 questions and req<\/p>\n uests to do something for others at no charge. A small number of these are from actual friends, some are from acquaintances, some from people who know me (and I don\u2019t know them) and others from referrals. I know that many others are in a similar situation. Perhaps not getting nearly the same volume as I do, but nonetheless, it is troublesome or has the potential to be so. Today I\u2019ll be sharing the 7 reasons why I can\u2019t do \u201cfree\u201d and I\u2019ll be writing a follow-up post giving tips to those of you in a similar situation.<\/p>\n Many people who ask for free help from others don\u2019t consider the time involved with providing it. I know they think \u2013 it\u2019s only a simple question. It shouldn\u2019t take long to answer, so it shouldn\u2019t be an inconvenience. I beg to differ.<\/p>\n I track everything I do \u2013 both the time spent on things as well as the volume. I\u2019m updating this post on February 8, 2016. In the first 37 days of the year, I received 961 requests to do something for free. If it took me an average of 10 minutes to answer each person properly, that would mean 9,620 minutes or 160 hours or just over 4 hours a day.<\/p>\n Even if all I did was tell people I can\u2019t provide free advice, if it took 2 minutes to read their request and tell them I can\u2019t help them, that works out to 32 hours of time so far this year. That\u2019s basically a full working week!<\/p>\n Most of the requests I receive somehow come back to helping someone else realize their dreams in some way. The thing is \u2013 I have my own dreams. I have more things I want to do than there are hours to get it all done in.<\/p>\n The things that people ask me to do for free are actually offered as a paid service through one or other of my companies. If you were a paying customer with one of my companies, how would you feel if you knew I was offering services free to other people just because they asked? It\u2019s not fair to my existing customers.<\/p>\n Each of us has only so many truly productive hours in a day. In my own case, I can get in about 5 solid productive hours on a typical day. It\u2019s like a bank for me. Each day, I start off with this reserve of 5 hours. As I do work through the day, the reserve gets depleted. But it gets depleted at a faster rate when I have to shift gears more frequently. If I had a day where all I did was fulfill 5-10 minute requests, it would likely mean I\u2019d be able to do maybe 20 of them in a day and absolutely nothing else productive. A complicated \u201csimple\u201d request might mean I need to do an hour of background thinking to figure out an answer, it might mean 20 minutes of research, it might mean contacting one or more people for input.<\/p>\n I think that a part of the issue is that some people see me active in social media and engaging, so they assume I have all this time available. Bantering with people about our respective days, the weather, the weekend or some current event topic does not require creative energy on my part. This is mental downtime. It doesn\u2019t impact what I can get done in the day. Ask me to put on my thinking cap, even for a \u2018simple\u2019 question, and it\u2019s a different story.<\/p>\n There have been countless times where I have helped people. In some cases, I\u2019ve spent an hour or more of time with someone because I thought they genuinely needed the assistance. Whenever I have followed up to see how things were, it\u2019s been very rare that they actually took any action on things. Often these were cases where someone was fired up about an idea, reached out to me before they even thought things through themselves, but when it came to actually doing<\/em>, they lost their enthusiasm.<\/p>\n Now, there are some people who sincerely would value free assistance. But is it up to me to provide free help to anyone who asks for it on the basis that a small percentage of people will take it and run with it? No.<\/p>\n I worked my butt off to make it through business school. I had to work full-time in conjunction with school pretty much from my teens. I\u2019ve been in business for over 20 years. I\u2019ve paid my own dues. I am a professional. My knowledge and expertise, even if it simply a matter of answering one question \u2013 has value. It may have taken me over 2,000 working hours just to have the knowledge to answer a brief question skillfully.<\/p>\n Customers who pay me for my knowledge contact me through the same methods that those who want assistance for free do. The Internet is my office. You\u2019d not expect a doctor, lawyer, accountant or other professional to provide free assistance \u2013 I should be treated with the same respect.<\/p>\n I used to be much more generous with my time \u2013 that is until I got to the point where it was detrimental to my own life and well-being. One of the things I discovered is that a significant percentage of the time when I helped someone out for free, they would come back \u2013 often repeatedly \u2013 for more free help. It has to end somewhere.<\/p>\n I thought I had this post finished when my partner at Frontspace<\/a>, Steve Jones, reminded me of a trifecta of other issues \u2013 quality control, responsibility and reputation management.<\/p>\n I pride myself on doing as excellent a job at everything I do as is humanly possible. It is impossible for me to do things for free and maintain the level of quality I\u2019d want to.<\/p>\n By the same token, when offering slipshod free advice, I am also opening myself up to responsibility issues that I\u2019m not willing to take on. Let\u2019s say if it should have taken me an hour to research something appropriately, but I short cut it to 5 minutes and miss something significant. I tell the person the 5 minute answer. They act based on this advice. It is wrong. Where are my responsibilities here? What damage could be done to my reputation if this person went public and said I gave them wrong advice. In some cases, I could be opening myself up to legal issues.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Approaching this topic \u2013 and blogging about it like this \u2013 is very difficult for me. In an ideal world, I\u2019d love to be able to help everyone I could. I hate coming across as a bitch. But part of the reason people come to me is that I have had success in business and a big reason for this is because I know the lines that have to be drawn. This is one of them.<\/p>\n When I\u2019ve told people I can\u2019t help them or don\u2019t offer free advice, they often get testy with me. The reality is \u2013 free for others comes with a price for me. It\u2019s a price I\u2019m just not willing\/able to pay these days.<\/p>\n I know I\u2019m not alone. Probably many of you reading this post get a varying number of requests for free help with things. In an upcoming post, I\u2019ll tackle some ways that I have dealt and will be dealing with these requests. Hopefully it will help some of you.<\/p>\n If you need help with something and there\u2019s someone you respect enough to approach for help, realize their time is valuable. Before contacting them directly, check out their website. See what their options may be for paid assistance or even if they take questions they would answer publicly.<\/p>\n If you are on the receiving end of requests for free help, realize it is okay \u2013 and healthy \u2013 for you to answer, \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve received literally thousands of messages from people after writing this post. Many people had asked for guidance on how to handle various situations relating to brain picking requests and for free help. Others wanted to know when free can<\/i> be used. I put together a program called \u201cConverting Free to Paid\u201d that almost 1,000 people have now taken. It\u2019s inexpensive. You can get started with it immediately plus I\u2019m available to people who go through it for questions through a Facebook group and q&a calls.<\/p>\n1. The Time It Takes<\/h2>\n
2. It Takes Away From My Paying Customers<\/h2>\n
3. It Zaps My Creative Juice<\/h2>\n
4. Most People Don\u2019t Value Things They Get For Free<\/h2>\n
5. I\u2019m a Professional Who Works Online<\/h2>\n
6. It Doesn\u2019t Stop at One Request<\/h2>\n
7. Quality Control, Responsibility & Reputation Issues<\/h2>\n
Parting Words<\/h2>\n
Need More Help?<\/h2>\n