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The Simple Tricks Experts Use to Always Get Paid For Their Time

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When I think about it, I still get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was chatting with a woman with an interior design business about the changes she needed to make in her website. The conversation was going well — she loved all my ideas and was ready to rebuild her site. I started getting excited, thinking I had found my next project. I was already putting together her proposal in my head. Then she uttered those dreaded words … “I’d love to take you to lunch and pick your brain sometime.” I didn’t know what to say or do. I felt my face turning red and I stammered out an excuse about getting back to her when I checked my calendar. Requests for “brain-picking” are rampant in any business, and they’re never fun if you’re the one whose brain is being picked. It used to happen to me so much that I found myself becoming resentful. Every time I spoke with someone new I heard a little voice in the back of my head saying “Ugh, I bet they’ll never hire you, they just want a bunch of help for free”. That little voice was not very helpful for landing clients If you’ve ever been in this situation, there is a way to turn this around. There is a way to handle these situations with grace and without frustration. There’s even a way to make those freebie requests go away — or, even better, turn into paying clients. It is your job, and your job alone, to set appropriate boundaries and clear up what you’re happy to give for free and what you charge for. That might be hard to hear. But if you want to move through these situations with grace (and encounter them less often) you have to stop placing blame — and start making it a policy to get paid for your time. Sound impossible? It’s not. Here’s how: 1. Take full responsibility The most important thing you can do is stop being angry at the prospect for asking. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. If you were given the choice between getting a new computer for free or paying for the same computer, you’d pick free every time — and you’d never think about the company who doesn’t get paid for the sale. Why would you? I know free is my favorite price for everything. It is your prospect’s prerogative to ask for your time for free. Let me say that again — it is their prerogative to ask . In fact, they’d be missing a golden opportunity if they paid for something when they didn’t have to. You can’t blame the prospect for taking the smart route. You’re also missing the subtle compliment that goes with being asked for advice. When someone asks you for your time for free, be grateful that they view you as someone who can offer valuable advice . Gary Vaynerchuk constantly says how grateful he is to get thousands of emails a day — he doesn’t take it for granted that every one of those people thinks that he is worth taking time out of their life to write to him. Everyone asking for your time is already “sold” on you to a degree — they must be or they wouldn’t be asking you for more! Instead of viewing them as a dead-end cheapskate, see them as someone who is so invested in you that they’ll either be a potential client or a source of referrals. 2. Clearly establish your service offerings Sometimes people ask you to work for free because you haven’t given them anything to buy. When I offered web design I didn’t have any packages for ongoing support. I charged clients a per-project fee, and considered the project done when the client signed off on the design. Invariably, people would contact me after the project was officially “over” with some tiny request — things that literally took 5-10 minutes of my time. Crafting a new invoice for this small request seemed silly, yet all of these requests were starting to seriously eat up my time. I started to feel like I had to provide free service for life for each one-time purchase, and I felt like people were taking advantage of me when they asked for these small favors. Looking back, I can see that they weren’t taking advantage of me. The issue was mine. I should have had a clearly-defined ongoing support package to offer in response to those requests. That would have made things clear — either you had purchased my ongoing support or you hadn’t. As it stood, everyone was in the grey zone. If you don’t like people asking for your time for free, but also don’t have any sort of well-defined offer in place to charge them for that time, the blame falls squarely on you. 3. Decide what you’ll give away … What are you willing to give out for free? This is where content marketing is your friend, because you offer plenty of valuable free resources like your blog or newsletter. It also may be appropriate to do brief introductory phone calls, or host one group in-person session per month for people who are interested in working with you. Whatever it is for your business, get clear. For the record, you do not have to offer any time for free. It is possible to get hired without any kind of free consult beforehand if you do a great job building the relationship ahead of time with your content marketing . In my business people sign $5,000 contracts with me without any kind of free introductory consult. 4. … but don’t assume that free advice is all they want We often make the mistake of assuming that someone isn’t willing to pay just because they ask to “pick our brain.” Again, they’re asking because we all love free. That doesn’t mean they’re unwilling to pay, it means they’re hoping they won’t have to. They’ve expressed interest in learning more from you, which means they are a potential client and should be treated as such. Remember that you are in business here, which means that you exchange value for money. Don’t let “free” become your default mode. It is your job to take the lead. If you lead them down the free path that’s exactly where they’ll go. Lead them down the customer path instead. 5. Respond with confidence Here’s a script for how to handle someone asking you for coffee or lunch to “pick your brain”: I’m glad to hear you’re interested in getting deeper into this. The next step is my one-hour consultation. Would you like me to tell you how that works? Notice that you’re asking permission and putting the prospect in the driver’s seat. You’re also using the clear service offering that you established in step two. You’re not explaining why you’re charging, because there’s no need: your time is valuable . That’s a given. Even if you’re not used to thinking of it that way yet, get used to responding to these queries as though you are. If they want to hear more about your consult, that’s great! You have the green light to sign a new client. Some people will backpedal and start saying they’re tight on money. Here’s another script you can use in that scenario: I completely understand, you have my card so just get in touch with me when you’re ready. You can also take a look at the articles on my blog if you’d like some more general advice that can tide you over until you’re ready to embark on this project. What you don’t want to do is hedge, waver or discount. Stand firm with full respect for your business and you’ll find that the prospect will share that respect. Hold firm and freebie requests will fall off You’ll notice that the people at the very top seem to struggle with this topic less, even though they get the most requests. Why? When you’re clear and confident in what you offer, paying for your time becomes the natural progression. Get clear, get confident and start being honored by those “freebie” requests. That’s how you become an expert that always gets paid for their time. If getting all of those requests because you’re the top expert in your field is a problem you would like to have, check out my course Creating Fame . It’s a step-by-step guide to making you and your business famous using social media. Enrollment opens for a limited time on Thursday, October 7th. About the Author: Laura Roeder is a social media marketing expert who teaches small businesses how to create their own fame and claim their brand online. She lives in Venice Beach, California, where she video blogs, makes frequent trips to the library, and volunteers with local middle schoolers.

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Why Being Too Diligent About Your Facts Can Hurt Your Content

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Once upon a time, the world was flat. Now it’s round. Who knows? Maybe some day we’ll find out it’s square. It’s hard to come across a cold hard fact anymore. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. Drink 16 glasses of water a day. Don’t drink any water; get all your water from fruits and vegetables. The contradictory advice goes on forever. There’s almost nothing you can nail down with absolute certainty. Even your own content. When you’re writing a game-changing piece of content, it’s natural to want to nail that article down with irrefutable data. So you spend seventeen hours to come up with data from books, white papers, and online sources. But your research is tainted No matter how hard you work to nail down the facts, you’re going to run into accuracy problems. That’s because your information sources aren’t entirely reliable. Even if the source is reliable, the information may not be. For example, a magazine may accurately report the findings of a study, but who says the study results are actually correct? Here are just a few ways your research can become tainted: Research is often funded by lobby groups pushing their own agendas. Passed-down information can lose relevant bits. What was once fact has since been overturned by new evidence. Let’s look at them one by one. Problem 1: Research may not be objective Let’s say a lobby group wants to increase sales of lemonade. They fund research to find more reasons for you to drink lemonade. They pour squillions of dollars into their research, and amazingly enough, all that research comes to the same conclusion: lemonade has amazing health benefits. Of course, that’s not how the research is presented to you . The research is presented in an interesting, fact-driven way that makes you believe it. Given a slew of reasonable-sounding facts and a truckload of statistics, and most of us will change our perception . That’s not to say lobby groups are bad people. They’re just like you and me. We tell our kids to eat spinach because it will make them big and strong. Doesn’t matter if the spinach doesn’t actually have the nutrients to get kids big and strong. Doesn’t matter if we’ve cooked the goodness out of the spinach. The kids swallow the idea — and hopefully the spinach. We all present information in the best light. And when we add figures and facts, it becomes something written in stone. Except it’s not written in stone. It’s not cold, hard fact. It’s just one view, one presentation of the data. Problem 2: Hand-me down facts Use tea bags to polish hardwood floors. Mix turmeric and honey in hot water and drink it for a cough. Use the underside of a ceramic mug to put an edge on that dull kitchen knife. These are hand-me down facts. They work — but do they work just the way they’re written? Did the author leave out a piece of critical information in the re-telling? Perhaps you have to steep the tea bags for a certain amount of time. Maybe you have to be careful to get the exact correct angle between your knife and that ceramic mug. Facts often develop holes over time. As stories get handed down, they lose information. The main part of the story may be true, but misleading without key pieces of information that go with it. The only way to be sure it to check for yourself. You take those tea bags and polish a part of your hardwood floor. If the floors shine, you’ve got a personal story of your own to tell. Hand-me-down data looks valid, but unless you’ve proved it yourself, you’re quoting unproven research. And that takes us to the final problem: The data keeps changing. Problem 3: Facts evolve As recently as 1980, most neuroscientists would tell you with confidence that the brain had no meaningful plasticity. Plasticity means that the brain is adaptable. That it can heal damage from strokes, accidents, and other horrible things, and that it can change and adapt after the critical period of childhood. There’s now research (yeah, I’m aware of the irony in referencing research in this article) that all areas of the brain can change and evolve even in adulthood. Destroyed function can be “re-routed” to other areas of the brain. And intense mental activity (like studying for med school exams) can change the brain in measurable ways in a matter of weeks. I want you to understand one thing: these original nay-sayers were neuroscientists. They live, breathe, and map their entire careers around research about how the brain works. Some of the smartest people on the planet. And they were wrong. Today, neuroplasticity is an irrefutable fact. But who’s to know what will come around the corner? Does this mean you shouldn’t research your articles? Not at all. Research matters. Facts matter. All I’m saying is that it isn’t necessary to spend all those hours tracking down facts. Often, the facts you find are only half-right, or they’re just a part of greater truths to be revealed. Go ahead and do your research, but put on an egg timer. If you don’t get what you’re looking for in about 20 minutes, it’s time to get your own facts together. Don’t make up facts that aren’t true, but tell us your own experience. It’s better to simply write what you know. Not only does it make for a good story , you can be secure that what you’re saying is really true. Research makes things interesting, but your own case studies are just as interesting. So don’t be bashful. Use your personal stories and experiences more often — you don’t need fifteen sources and two experts to back you up. You might be wrong Sure, you may be wrong about the way you interpret what you experience. The neuroscientists were wrong too. So were all the smart, educated people who insisted the world was flat. There have been countless geniuses who insisted on theories that would ultimately prove to be wrong. Research won’t save you from being wrong. It’ll just get in the way of telling your story — and that’s more important than having irrefutable facts. Especially because the facts are never irrefutable. No matter how much research you do. About the Author: Sean D’Souza offers a great free report on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter . Be sure to check out his blog , too.

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The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines

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Email is back. Despite repeated proclamations of its extinction, rumors of the death of email marketing have been greatly exaggerated — especially since email and social media are a powerful combination. You might not reach the average college freshman , but for slightly older types (you know, the ones with the money), email is still the way to go in many lucrative mainstream niches. You must first, of course, get your emails read. And it all starts with the subject line. Email subject lines are a form of headline . They perform the same function as a headline by attracting attention and getting your email content a chance to be read. So, headline fundamentals still apply. But the context is different, with the email space having its own funky little quirks that need to be accounted for. Here’s the good news — email also implies a special relationship with the reader; a relationship that will get more of your messages read, even with subject lines that wouldn’t work in other headline contexts. Let’s take a look back at headline fundamentals, the specifics that apply to subject lines, and the “secret sauce” that makes email your top conversion channel. 1. The Fundamentals: When you’re writing your next email subject line, run it through this checklist, based on the Four “U” Approach to headline writing : Useful : Is the promised message valuable to the reader? Ultra-specific : Does the reader know what’s being promised? Unique : Is the promised message compelling and remarkable? Urgent : Does the reader feel the need to read now? When you’re trying to get someone to take valuable time and invest it in your message, a subject line that properly incorporates all four of these elements can’t miss. And yet, execution in the email context can be tricky, so let’s drill down into subject-line specifics for greater clarity. 2. The Specifics: Beyond headline fundamentals, these are the things to specifically focus on with email subject lines: Identify yourself : Over time, the most compelling thing about an email message should be that it’s from you . Even before then, your recipient needs to know at a glance that you’re a trusted source. Either make it crystal clear by smart use of your “From” field, or start every subject line with the same identifier. For example, with our own Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter , every subject line begins with [Smart People]. Useful and specific first : Of the four “U” fundamentals, focus on useful and ultra-specific, even if you have to ignore unique and urgent. There are plenty of others who work at unique and urgent with every subject line — we call them spammers. Don’t cross the line into subject lines that are perceived as garbage. But do throw in a bit of a tease. Urgent when it’s useful : When every email from you is urgent, none is. Use urgency when it’s actually useful, such as when there’s a real deadline or compelling reason to act now. If you’re running your email marketing based on value and great offers, people don’t want to miss out and need to know how much time they have. Rely on spam checking software : We all know that certain words trigger spam filters, but there’s a lot of confusion out there about which words are the problem. Is it okay to use the word “free” in a subject line? Actually, yes. All reputable email services provide spam checking software as part of the service or as an add-on. Craft your messages with compelling language, let the software do its job, and adjust when you have to. Shorter is better : Subject line real estate is valuable, so the more compact your subject line, the better. Don’t forget useful and ultra-specific, but try to compress the fundamentals into the most powerful promise possible. 3. The Secret Sauce: Getting someone to trust you with their email address is not easy. Twelve years ago when I started in email publishing, people would sign up for anything remotely interesting. No longer. But if you do gain that initial trust, and more importantly, confirm and grow it , you can write pretty lame subject lines and people will still read your emails. Just as with that ditzy friend from high school who nonetheless always has something interesting to say, trust and substance matter most. Don’t get me wrong, writing great subject lines combined with the more intimate relationship email represents is much more effective. And you have to get your initial messages read to establish the relationship in the first place. Regardless, your open rates will improve based on the quality of your subject line. But there’s something special in this jaded digital age about being invited into someone’s email inbox. You just have to over-deliver on the value to ensure you’re a treasured guest who gets invited back. The inbox can be a stressful place. How do you make it brighter? About the Author : Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of the writer-friendly Scribe SEO software . Get more from Brian on Twitter . P.S. Have you checked out Internet Marketing for Smart People , the Copyblogger email newsletter? It features a free 20-step course that builds your business, so click here and subscribe today .

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6 Online Marketing Mistakes that Will Kill Your Business

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Usually on Copyblogger we talk about how to grow your business , get more customers, increase your conversion rate, build thousands of daily readers, and all the rest of it. But you also need to know about the factors that will kill off your business. Sometimes it’s a question of attitude, like when you’re sick of it, when it’s only a hobby and you don’t want to take it too seriously, or when you’re equally scared of success and failure. And then there are just downright mistakes, which, fortunately, can be corrected. If you want your business to thrive, watch out for these warning signs. Get them straightened out and you’ll get your business on the road to robust good health. #1: A sucky attitude Your attitude about your own business will affect everyone else’s attitude about it. Every web visitor, every person you speak to, every twitter and FaceBook contact. They’ll know, without you telling them, exactly how you regard your business. What are some of the warning signs that your attitude may suck? When you don’t post for weeks on end. When you haven’t put out a new product or service for the last six months. When you say your business would be great if it wasn’t for those $#%^& customers. When you whinge about how hard business is and how all those successful A-listers must have had friends in the right places. When you’re expecting to be an overnight success and you’re surprised that you aren’t both rich and famous after six months. #2: Marketing to a demographic, not a niche The best and simplest definition of a niche that I’ve seen is “a group of people with a common problem who congregate together.” What isn’t a niche? Freelancers are not a niche. Work at Home Parents (mums, dads, or both) are not a niche. Small business owners are not a niche. Copywriters are not a niche. Women over 40 are not a niche, neither are men after retirement. Those are all demographics — and they’re all groups that I’ve seen people try to market to. It’s only a niche when they share a problem. So what’s the problem in your niche, and how are you going to solve it? Where does your niche group together so you can market to them specifically? It’s a marketing paradox that the more you narrow your niche, the more successful your marketing will be. Have a look at who you’re aiming at now and ask yourself if it’s a demographic or a real niche. How can you narrow your message down to their core problem — the one that you solve brilliantly and uniquely? #3: Looking like a cheapskate It’s so easy to set up an online business these days — just whack up a WordPress.com or Blogger site and off you go. Need graphics? Pick up some clip art. Logo and website header? $50 should take care of that if you outsource to the lowest bidder. Business cards? You can get freebies from Vistaprint, why pay money for a designer and printing? Newsletter list? Send that from your desktop with Outlook. The only problem here is that your business looks cheap. And the overall impression visitors and potential clients get is that you’re (a) broke, (b) cheap and (c) unprofessional. There are some things you can do free or low-cost and no one will notice. Your website is not one of them. Don’t get me wrong here, you don’t have to go to the other extreme and mortgage your house to pay for the website. You do have to make sure that your site has a clean, professional look, that it’s easy to navigate, and that your web presence makes you look worth the prices you charge. #4: Not capturing visitor details Someone comes to your site, looks around, reads some posts, and then leaves. Sure, they liked it and intend to come back and read some more — but they never do. They forget, lose the url, get busy. And you’ve lost them forever. I’m amazed at the number of small businesses that don’t have a way to capture visitor details — their names and email addresses. They’re losing customers and making life harder for themselves. It takes time and effort to attract people to your site, so why let them leave without a way to keep in touch? Set up an email newsletter list (NOT from your desktop, see #3 above) and offer a valuable free report or ebook in exchange for their details. MailChimp is free up to 500 subscribers if money is tight at the start, and you can build from there. Once you’ve lost a visitor they’re gone forever — along with every person they may have referred you to. Do you really want to let them get away that easily? #5: Failing to plan long term Or don’t plan at all. Business plans are for big businesses, and for when you need to go to the bank for capital, right? Wrong! When you don’t plan you’ll drift. You’ll chase the latest marketing guru and technique, flit from this to that and wonder why nothing seems to work for you. What are you aiming for? What do you expect out of your business? How will you know when you’ve reached it? You don’t need a 100 page plan full of legalese and possible budgets and financial projections that no-one but your Accountant understands. But at the very least you do need to know what your aims (goals) for your business are, who you’re marketing to, and what makes you different from everyone else out there. No plan = No business. #6: All learning, no action Are you a ‘gunna’? You’re ‘gunna’ do this and ‘gunna’ do that? Just as soon as you’ve studied this marketing e-course, read those 136 ebooks, listened to the 84 teleseminars and watched the 78 hours of business videos that you’ve downloaded onto your computer? How many information products have you bought that you’ve never read, listened to or watched? How many of them have you actually worked through step by step? We all do this, or rather, don’t do this. Me? I’m waiting for retirement before I work through my resources folder — it’s the only way I’ll ever have the time. Ebooks, courses, videos and all the other teaching methods are great, as long as you utilize what you’ve learned . Information junkies abound. People who take action on what they’ve learned are rare. You’ll learn more in your first twelve months of actually running your business and putting yourself out there than you will from any number of books, courses and videos. Information is great, but nothing beats taking action. About the Author: Mel Brennan is the antipodean force behind both SuperWAHM and the Two Hour Business Plan . You can also catch her on Twitter . P.S. Looking for the advice we talked about at the beginning: how to grow your business, get more customers, increase your conversion rate, gain several thousand daily readers, and all of that good stuff? You’ll find it on the free Copyblogger newsletter, Internet Marketing for Smart People . Come join us today !

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We’re Taking the Summer Off…

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Well, not the whole summer. But we are giving ourselves a break. We spend a lot of time teaching people how to build smart, sustainable businesses with content. The kind of businesses that give us enough free time to have some decent work-life balance. After all, working your own schedule, to suit your own life, is one of the biggest benefits of running a business, right? Then it occurred to us — hm, maybe we should take some of our own advice. Many folks in the U.S. are taking today off for the Independence Day holiday, and we’re going to join them. And tomorrow we start our official summer schedule. We’ll post three terrific articles a week: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Then from Thursday through Sunday, enjoy a long summer weekend. Go for a bike ride, have lunch with friends, go to the zoo with your kids, maybe throw in a picnic or two. Yes, continue to work on and grow your business . But balance that out with all the other great stuff in your life. In other words, have a terrific summer — we only get so many of them. (Special note for our readers in Australia, where it is currently winter. Um, sorry. Maybe go for some relaxing sleigh rides on the beach?) Already pining for your Copyblogger fix? Feed your addiction by subscribing to the free Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter. It’s all the cutting-edge marketing advice you’ve been craving, delivered hot and fresh to your email in-box. Even if you live in Australia. About the Author : Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication .

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We’re Taking the Summer Off…