Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premiere online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today, we're going to tell you to stop giving away your time for free. This is a public service. We can't say it strongly enough. Your time is valuable. Your time is worth money. Stop giving it away. What do we mean here, Melanie?
Melanie
We don't even realise we're doing it. I spent the first, I'd say, even as much as a year, maybe even 18 months of not fully appreciating how much I was giving it away. We also recommend that you do give it away. It's a very fine line, isn't it?
Esther
Yes, it's a very slim line between the two. But there.
Melanie
Are ways and means. It depends on how you're giving it away, where you're giving it away, and why you're giving it away. So,
Esther
Yeah, there are valid reasons as to why.
Melanie
So we're giving it away every week.
Esther
Yeah, we really are. We're hussies.
Melanie
I wouldn't go as far as that. We're yowsers. Okay. Now, what we're talking about is when you're standing outside the school waiting for your kids and a parent comes over and says, Oh, you do social media, you do marketing, don't you? I just wanted to ask you something. And initially you think, Oh, well, yeah, no problem. Sure. It'd be no hassle.
Esther
Yeah, I'm waiting here anyway. Nothing else to do.
Melanie
And then you realise that you're still standing there with Billy 20 minutes after they've got out as well.
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
So that's 30 minutes you spent explaining something to somebody. And you're like, Oh, no.
Esther
Yeah. But like you said, it is this fine line because you could just say, Right, well, I've only got five minutes till the kid comes out, so shoot, I'll give you these five minutes. That's no bother. But make it that once you see your child, you're like, Right, right, got to go have swimming practice. Don't just lie. But you have other things to do because you have your child or you have your pet or you have whatever.
Melanie
You have going on. You've got to manage expectations, isn't it? You've got to manage expectations.
Esther
Yeah. You do. So there is that, oh, can I... Or there's the classic, let me buy you a coffee and pick your brain. My brain is worth more than a cup of coffee. Well, mine is. Your brain is worth... I don't even drink coffee. Your brain is worth more than a cup of coffee. Your time, your skill, your expertise, the years that you spent studying, working, learning, honing your talent. Even if you're not in the service industry, say you're in the physical product industry. Oh My bracelet broke. Could you just fix it there for me? Just while you're here? Yeah, let me just whip out all my tools and see what the problem is. There is that weird expectation. And sometimes it comes from the best of friends. Sometimes your best friends are the worst at this because it's not like they probably don't expect it for free, but you're going to feel more guilty trying to charge them and send them an invoice. It's that.
Melanie
For some people, I don't think it's even that. I think it's just the fact that especially when you're starting a business or you're trying to push your business, you don't want to look like you're putting up barriers. You know, you don't. But you know.
Esther
It's this high.
Melanie
High lesser.
Esther
I know, I know, it right. So Melanie has been in business 10 years now at the time of recording, and we've been in business seven, sorry eight. So we've got 18 years of experience between us and have gone down this same things. We've done the same things. We've given our way our time for free. We got a phone call the other day from someone we bought a service from years ago that was asking for a favour. And you're not sure if that is a favour favour as in not going to pay you to do this, or a favour as in, not going to pay you to do this, or a favour as in, just give me a couple of ideas and I'll do it myself. It's that thing of like, I don't know you well enough to ask you this, but you did help me that time. I think it's four years ago at this point. But it's that where do you draw the line? So it's a fine line, but where do you draw it? And it could be something completely different for you than it is for me. Because every year in our company, we give pro bono. We do some pro bono work, so we gift a website to charities and things like that. So people apply and we just decide which one is going to get our pro bono work that year. But that is because we have decided to do it.
Melanie
Oh, okay.
Esther
Yeah, I know. Sent you to sleep.
Melanie
But I think every business is entitled to do that. I do it as well. I give away, especially to startups. The reason why I'm in business 10 years is because other people gave me their time. We're not saying you should never do it. Absolutely not. But you do have to start valuing your own time. Otherwise, other people won't.
Esther
That brings me on to another point. When you're starting up, especially, you seem to think, and we're all guilty of it, that you need to be online 24 7, you need to be available 24 7, and that it's perfectly okay to send and receive text messages, emails, requests, WhatsApp, whatever, after working hours. And I mean normal office hours, wherever you are in the world, that could be eight to six, it could be nine to five. Up to you what you set as office hours. But if you're getting messages at 10 o'clock at night, are you answering them?
Melanie
Yeah, I think I did when I first started, as much because I was keen as anything else. And the fear of missing out, the old FOMO kicking in. If I don't respond, then somebody else will. Do you know what? The majority of people don't respond. I respond for my clients, I respond for my clients pretty much around the year, around the clock. Actually, it says on my website, I will respond at reasonable hours. So if I'm up at six and I see a message, I'll respond.
Esther
Okay, that's fair enough.
Melanie
For a client. Fair enough. But if it's a brand new inquiry, it also says in my website, if you're looking for a quotation or something like that, then you need to give me up to three working days because I could be traveling, I could be off. So you need to give me up to three working days, depending on the size of the quote. Once people start valuing your time more, it feels more justified to charge them a sensible rate.
Esther
Yes, that's also true because we also fall into the trap of, well, we love doing what we're doing, so what's the harm in talking to Joe blogs for three hours about something we're passionate about? Their eyes might have glazed over after the first 20 minutes because you've got off on a tangent talking about how wonderful marketing, social media, whatever it is that you're working in is, that they're not even listening anymore and you're still giving away all your parlance and wisdom. We're not saying don't do it. We're not saying don't give value when you are talking to people. Try to have a system set up where, like Melanie said at the start, you're standing at the school gates waiting for your kid. You're in the park watching them play, whatever you're doing in your day to day life and someone comes up to you, give them a set amount of time and then say, Look, I've got to go, but you can go on my website and download whatever that you're giving away there for free, that you've already put your hard earned time in and your effort and everything else into. T hat means that they have to go and physically go and look for it and they see what else you do.
It gives them that in to say, Oh, so she also does that and that. Oh, look at that. I never thought of that. I could get that for my wife, etc.
Melanie
It's like speaking to plumbers or mechanics or something like that. I would feel like calling Alan the handyman, let's say. Hi, Alan. I need some work done in the house. Would you mind to give me a quotation for... These are the things I'm looking to get done. I don't say, This is what I'm hoping to get done, and this is how I want it to get done. It's just weird how certain services and certain jobs are thought of differently. It's not a proper job. You do have a proper job. You, our listener, you're doing marketing either for yourself and most certainly for a client or your boss. It is a proper job.
Esther
You're not just playing on Facebook all day.
Melanie
No. I've had it in the past, Esther, where somebody said, Well, I can do your job. I don't need you. I can just watch YouTube and Google and it's like, That was really quite harsh to hear. But you can spend hours watching loads and loads of out of date content because let's face it, we're in such a fast moving field that pretty much as soon as you put it out there... It's the same as this podcast. As soon as you put it out there, it's out of date. Unless it's about something evergreen, which this is, this particular topic is. So you've got to parcel yourself in that you've got a working person and a non working person that's at home with their family or playing with their animals or kayaking at the weekend or whatever. I don't know where that came from.
Esther
Certainly neither of us.
Melanie
But anyway. But we do a proper job and we should treat it as a proper job and give value to it. We do tend to give it away because we're passionate about it, but we have to package it and deliver it and offer it at a premium. Yeah..
Esther
And I mean, going back to the YouTube videos, you could also go on and look for exactly what you're wanting Alan the handyman to do in your house. And you could try and do that yourself. But I'm pretty sure you'd be more scared of doing that and potentially damaging something in your.
Melanie
House than trying to do... That's how our customers feel, isn't it? They feel scared. They don't know how to do it. They don't want to, Oh, my God. Once it's out there, it's out there forever.
Esther
Yeah. I don't know. Where you draw the line is up to you. If you want to be answering messages and giving away all your information for free all the time, that's fine. At some point somebody will buy from you because they're going to still need the rest of the information that's locked away in your head. It's a way to show that you're the expert and show that you know what you're talking about and know what you're doing. But you need to draw the line as to where that stops and where you go. Right, so from now on, you're now on the clock, you're now being paid. Do you tell people outright, Okay, we'll go for a cup of coffee, but I'll buy the coffee and at the end of set time, the invoice will be sent. Do you specify it like that? It's all up to you. It's you that's running your business. We're not telling you how to run your business. We're just trying to let you know that.
Melanie
You're allowed.
Esther
We've been there.
Melanie
Yeah, you're allowed. You're allowed to charge for your time.
Esther
And you're allowed to say no.
Melanie
Thank you, Alexa.
Esther
You're also allowed to say... I was hoping to just.
Melanie
You can tell this is a recording live. She's listening. There are no script.
Esther
Now I've lost my train of thought.
Melanie
But that's how you watch at your age, love.
Esther
No, hey, come on. We'll not go into that one, will we, Melanie? But what we're saying here is we've been there, we've done that. We still do it occasionally from time to time. We're not going to lie to you. I'm not going to say, oh, after two years, I stopped giving away all my time for free. We still do it.
Melanie
We still do, yeah.
Esther
Because there's still some, you know, we'll answer messages on Facebook or people that have posted in different groups and, oh, how do you do this? We will tell people how to do that because we've been there, done that. There's just so many things that you know more because you have lived it and you've gone through it that somebody who hasn't yet lived it could never fully understand. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to the episode Melanie did on her own about getting back a meta business page because I couldn't even be involved in that conversation. That was something that I'd never done before. So that's why Melanie was on her own. But if somebody comes to me and goes, Oh, here, help me with this. I'm just automatically going to go, No, I'm going to send you to Melanie because I know that she is the expert in that field because I just know. You have to know your limitations as well. Yeah, you do.
Melanie
And this this entire podcast was set up because we thought we could help people get out of the comfort zone and also to help them appreciate that they're not alone. They're not the only people that feel like this at times. And it's really awkward that first time you have that conversation with somebody saying, It was really nice that you've come to me with this problem, and it's definitely something I can help with. But you know what? Once I pick up my kids, I have to go to such and such and such and such. I just don't have the time. But you know what? Here's my phone number, or here's my website, or my calendar, or whatever. I'm more than happy to help you. And if you want to, as a business owner, if you want to give them mates rates or something like that, you're absolutely welcome to.
Esther
Yeah. And you can fully, like you're fully within your rights as well to say, look, I'm giving you this rate, but this is only because we're mates. If you're recommending me to someone else, don't mention how much my services cost. I mean, it's your business, you can run it however you want. But do set up the expectations from the start, like we've said in other episodes. If that's one of your expectations and that, Okay, so for the first 10 clients, when you start up your business, you're going to give it at such and such a rate. Do that. But you might want to tell them, This is only for the first 10. After that, my rates go up. It's all about valuing your own time and valuing your knowledge. Definitely. Because too many times we're going, Oh, well, sure, I know it. I know how that's done, so I can easily tell them. For them, it might not be easy to hear and understand.
Melanie
Exactly. And that 20 minute conversation you thought you were going to have goes on for a couple of hours because you can't stop.
Esther
Yeah, you can't stop. And they keep going round and round in circles going, but you said that it had to be like that because as we know in marketing, it all depends. And on that note, we're going to wrap up the website.
Melanie
What am I talking about? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Esther
See, should have wrapped it up already. Wrap up the episode and we'll be back next week with more Monday morning marketing.
Melanie
Until then, bye.
Esther
Bye. I really need more coffee.
Melanie
Do you know...
Esther
You're going to buy me one?
Melanie
Very funny. Do you know what we should do? I did a talk on my own. I think you need to do a talk on your own about something like websiteery, seeing as you brought that up already.
Esther
Okay. Yeah. So that was just a ear worm.
