#4: Giving free advice vs. charging for it

“Hey, I need to call you! I need your help with something!”
“Can I pick your brain?”
“I have a quick question about….”

We all know these questions pretty well, right? On the one hand, you’re glad people trust you enough to ask for help. But, on the other hand, when you’re trying to juggle so many things it is hard to drop everything and do work you know you won’t be paid for.

On today’s Thursday Thoughts episode, I answer a question about “getting out of the friend zone in business.” The questioner says she’s given away loads of free advice over the years but has trouble steering the conversation to her paid services.

I give a three part answer on how you can get out of the friends zone in business but keep your friends. Check it out below.

To recap, my basic suggestions are to:

Create a website where you build your personal brand.
Create content on that website that answers the questions people ask most frequently (but only when relevant to your business).
Send people that link, along with the specific way they can hire you for more personalized attention.

If you follow these suggestions, you can get out of the friends zone in business but keep your friends!

Questions & Action: Answer a Free Question + Offer paid services

After you’ve had a chance to watch the video, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

Please answer these questions for me:

What kinds of questions do you get all the time?
Are you willing to write or record your first post in response to a commonly asked question?

Please give as much information as you can in response to these questions. I’d be happy to share more tools and resources that help you navigate this very weird professional space. And, I know the other folks reading this can learn from your experiences and how you handled them! We are all in this together.

Finally, I always say that I’m on a mission to help people build the brands, businesses and lives that they love. We can learn from each other on this journey, particularly when we have accountability partners. This is why I am building a whole nation of side-hustlers, creatives and business owners who hold each other–-and me–-accountable.

You can join my network online and via app. Check us out at programs.shontavia.com or via the Mighty Networks App.

Download the Mighty Network app by clicking here. Once it downloads, click “Find a Mighty Network” and search for Shontavia Johnson. You’ll find content there that I may not share elsewhere.

Thank you so much for joining me on this roller coaster of an experience. I am eternally grateful that I get to do this work with wonderful people each day.

Let’s make it happen,