Chapter 5 – Don’t Nickel and Dime

I don’t know a single person who has achieved success without doing a solid percentage of things for free as a jockeying chess move to their success.
~Gary Vee

 

Visiting a friend one summer, I learned of an awesome tech product that his father was building. He discovered I was a designer and asked if I could help with some banner and packaging designs. It was a tiny start-up company, though, and they wouldn’t be able to pay for it. I said yes for a number of reasons: One, I trusted him. Two, I thought the product was really interesting. Lastly, I would get to output some different work I didn’t have experience with yet.

I spent an additional year working for free with them, and eventually this start-up was successfully sold (I shared this story at the beginning of the book in the My Story section). I reflect upon this because sometimes unassuming, unpaid, or even work as a favor can lead to significant connections and experiences. Without hyperbole, that decision I made can be credited with much of the success I’ve had in my career. Such opportunities can be found if you’re open and discerning.

The conversation around working for free can easily devolve and turn toxic—for good reason! Horror stories of hucksters and bad businesses game the concept to steal good work. Ever been pulled into the “just one last change” horror story, where a client takes terrible advantage of a designer’s good nature to endlessly tweak an output, oblivious to the effort and time required?

To avoid being taken advantage of and to ensure that your free work is in service to something greater, some key questions to ask are:

 

• “Does this person care about my betterment?”
• “Is this free work exciting / interesting / experience-building?”
• “Am I helping out someone in a good-faith exchange?”
• “Is this someone who I would want to be on good terms with for networking?”

 

If you can answer these questions positively, there is a very real chance that you’ve found a good cause for which to dedicate some of your time.

Free work here breaks down into two categories: 1) your time and talent investment up front, investing into meaningful people or projects, 2) your continued investment post-delivery for something that’s already been paid for in order to genuinely love and serve your client.

Let’s look at each.

First Free Work Case: Time and Talent Investment

If a close, trusted friend asks you for help in designing a logo, instinctively you’d be happy to help as you care for the person. That social connection is a meaningful currency to you. If smart people you respect are trying to get an interesting product off the ground, that respect and interest could be enough of a deciding factor for you to donate your time.

Each scenario can provide a payout in many ways:

 

• If the product does launch and they come into funds, you could be first in line for the work.
• If they appreciate what you do, they each represent a networking point to help find you work. (Someone with an entrepreneurial spirit is going to run across many useful connections as they try and build their dream.)
• The work represents an interesting experience.
• Anyone involved represents a testimonial to how great a service you provide.

 

Each point above can be a scenario that plays out years into the future if you focus on providing great value. The one effort you made, which was interesting to do and provided experience, can result in multiple referrals and connection points for years to come.

You are known as the designer who is willing to jump into the trenches with good people to build great things, not the one sniffing around for a dollar at every opportunity.

Rely on your instincts and common sense to help discern interesting opportunities from situations where you will be taken advantage of. Keep strong notes of what you’re doing and how you were treated for doing it. It can be advantageous to be quick to act but slow to forget. Put another “famous” way: “Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me.”

If you are not perfectly clear whether a request for help is an interesting opportunity or an unfair one, consider sacrificing a bit of time to find out. Worst case is you’ll gain some experience, know who not to trust, and further hone your senses around beneficial opportunities.

Best case? You may set up your entire design career with great people.

Second Free Work Case: Continued Investment Post-Delivery

This free work case is really about loving your client and can be a massive differentiator between you and other designers. It represents actually caring about your client and how they’re able to use your work, being available for questions and support, and not disappearing once the initial job is complete

Of course, there is a thin line between this act of client love and being taken advantage of. Throwing in fifty free revisions and allowing infinite scope creep and thus ruining your finances will never do you any good. But trust your judgement and intelligence. You’ll know when the line is crossed.

If support becomes part of your mythos, it becomes part of your sales pitch where clients (and their friends) know you as the designer who’s eager to help and doesn’t chop them down at every minor request.

Clients are used to designers who bark back by demanding extra fees just for outputting a different-sized logo, altering a color, or answering a question about how to use a design. You are not a machine that’ll output one hundred new logo sizes a week, but certainly you can serve your client with one or two to help.

You aren’t in the business of supplying years of free consultation, but how about a phone call or two to guide them in the best ways to leverage your work? How about being the occasional sounding board for ideas to stretch your creative muscle? Can you help a new designer at a client’s firm understand your decisions and setup?

This builds comradery and trust, both of which can be leveraged into more clout within an organization and recurring work. A moment here or there is akin to buying advertisements for your services, except its return rate is exponentially higher.

Go the extra mile after you’ve delivered for your client and coworkers, and they’ll reward you for all the distance you’ve covered together.

Do some free work.

 

What I’m Not Saying

• Jump at every chance to do free work.
• Don’t value your time or your output.
• Be taken advantage of on the off chance something good comes out of it.
• Allow for never-ending revisions or changes.
• Train or be on call for free.

 

What I Am Saying:

• Be open to free work as a lever for your career, including:
  • experience
  • testimonials
  • networking
• Trust your gut and be willing to risk some time and effort.
• Don’t start each conversation with, “How much?” Instead, see what value can be exchanged.