Working For Free: At What Point Do You Say "Enough is Enough"?

[James Klymus]

Working for free/very cheap can be a powerful way to get your foot in the door with important people.

Lots of jobs require a period of grunt work/unpaid labor e.g. internships. And also, nearly any entrepreneurial venture will require you to work hard without any pay in the beginning.

But at some point, You'll have to ask your self "Is this worth it?"

After all, At some point you'll need to get paid. You can't spend your life toiling away for someone else while you get very little/no money in return.

Speaking of compensation, Maybe you're working for "exposure". Maybe you get paid in gas money, or you get meals paid for you.

At SOME point, You have to get paid. The bank doesn't accept "exposure" or free dinners as payment. So the question here is:

When is enough enough?

What is the tipping point? Is it time? e.g. "I've worked for this client for free for the past 6 months"

Is it deliverables? "I've set up this persons youtube and recorded 12 videos for free. Now should I start charging them"

Working for free is a fine line between great opportunity, and unnecessary stress and an empty bank account.

So when do you think "enough is enough"?

 

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[Kevin88660]

Working for free/very cheap can be a powerful way to get your foot in the door with important people.

Lots of jobs require a period of grunt work/unpaid labor e.g. internships. And also, nearly any entrepreneurial venture will require you to work hard without any pay in the beginning.

But at some point, You'll have to ask your self "Is this worth it?"

After all, At some point you'll need to get paid. You can't spend your life toiling away for someone else while you get very little/no money in return.

Speaking of compensation, Maybe you're working for "exposure". Maybe you get paid in gas money, or you get meals paid for you.

At SOME point, You have to get paid. The bank doesn't accept "exposure" or free dinners as payment. So the question here is:

When is enough enough?

What is the tipping point? Is it time? e.g. "I've worked for this client for free for the past 6 months"

Is it deliverables? "I've set up this persons youtube and recorded 12 videos for free. Now should I start charging them"

Working for free is a fine line between great opportunity, and unnecessary stress and an empty bank account.

So when do you think "enough is enough"?

Depends on the purpose of working for free.

Are you working for free to learn the skill or build your business CV/portfolio, or just to collect leads for a customer base.l?

For skill it is easy to tell you stopped working for free when you feel confident.

For a portfolio it is pretty much the same. When you have a portfolio of real customer appraisal you don’ need to work for free anymore.

If you are expanding customer base, working for free for six month is too long. Your acquisition cost is to the roof. If they aren’t your customer getting free service for one month, additional five month won’t help. Sometimes you need to zoom out and treat them as who they are, a lead, a potential customer to be converted after one month, estimated conversion ratio and calculate acquisition cost per sale.

Biggest red flag is that you feel you need to work for free simply because clients feel that they don’t wish to pay for such service regardless of your skill and expertise. Then it is time to reexamine if the need is a real need and get out of the market entirely. A lot of things in the world are good to have but people not willing to pay a dime.

 

[Damien C]

Over time you get better at knowing when to work for free strategically to gain access to a long term income source, and when someone is being a freeloading piece of shit. Don't be afraid to walk away. "It's better than nothing" doesn't always ring true. Sometimes nothing is better! There is an opportunity cost to everything.

 

[Kybalion]

When you've reached these two conditions:

#1 You feel confident in your abilities to provide value

#2 People are willing to pay you for that value

It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

 

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[Saad Khan]

When you've reached these two conditions:

#1 You feel confident in your abilities to provide value

#2 People are willing to pay you for that value

It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

This reply pretty much sums it up. Good one @Kybalion

 

[Ing]

Maybe some time you don’t say „yes“ , but say : „I don’t have free time today.“ maybe than there comes an offer without bumping someone on his head.

 

[kommen]

I don't really feel qualified to say this but I think you'll always get the answer by learning to negotiate regardless of the situation. In Never Split the Difference author Chriss Voss wrote that when people ask you to do something but you want to say NO, instead of saying no you ask what or how based questions until they offer something in return. So ask like "How would I do X when I [some obstacle]?" It's important to ask from a mindset and tone of being humble and asking for help.

This way, you make them negotiate with themselves, and because people are typically emotional and irrational, their instinct is to pay you back or give you something significant in return.

 

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