Entre-Talk: No More Freeloaders

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, Entre-Talk: No More Freeloaders.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master-certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hello everybody. What’s happening? Welcome to an Entre-Talk podcast episode. These are quick little nuggets of wisdom and inspiration and advice for all of my entrepreneur friends. I especially am good at helping coaches or service based entrepreneurs as obviously that is the business model I know best and the one I have a lot of experience in. And today’s Entre-Talk is coming from a conversation I recently had with a friend. Sometimes I have these conversations in passing with a friend or somebody that I interact with, maybe as maybe I’m the customer for example.

And I have some really interesting insight that comes to me sometimes in the midst of these conversations because people of course ask questions. And I hear myself giving advice and think that’s good advice. I want to give that to everyone on the podcast. And so that’s what today’s episode is. I want to talk about when you have people that are asking for your services for free or at least you think that they are asking for them for free. And maybe you’ve given your service for free, maybe you’ve provided it for free in the past.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing that but I find that for most people they get to a certain point where then they want to start charging and it’s a difficult transition from giving away for free into charging especially if you didn’t decide on purpose to give it away for free. You just sort of had a couple friends ask you for your help and you love what you do and you’re good at it and you love your friends and so you offer to help and then another friend heard about it and word gets around pretty fast especially in the LDS church or other communities like that.

And before you know it everybody’s asking for your help for free and it might be tempting to grow resentful or to feel frustrated or maybe somebody else in your life, maybe your spouse is resentful that you’re spending all this time doing this work for free or what have you. Anyway if you can relate to that in any way, shape or form, today’s episode is going to be for you. Now, before I tell you how to transition out of that I want to just mention that, like I said I think that there are good reasons to give things away for free.

Number one, sometimes when you are either new to what you do or you’re starting a new offer or new program or a new version of something you might choose to give it away for free as sort of a beta test group. There’s times when I’ve done that, especially when I first started my coaching practice, I coached people for free. I created a program, I created a six week program, was sort of what my mentor, Brooke Castillo advised, start out with a six week program, so I did.

And then I wanted to test it so I took 10 women through it for free. Was it 10 or eight? I don’t know. Anyway, around there and I did that on purpose. I said, “Hey.” I put out to my email list which I had a little bit of because I started blogging right away. And I said, “Hey, I have a brand new coaching program. I’m a new coach. And it’s meant to help you increase your confidence and your emotional control and support and it’s pretty amazing and it’s especially for you if you’re a member of the LDS church or have similar values. Apply here. It’s free because this is a beta test group.”

So I was very clear about that upfront. So I knew that I was purposely taking those people through it for free. They knew it was my first time doing it and that it was a beta. And anybody else who may have heard of that knew that that was a one-time offer. So it’s a really nice clean way to do it if you want to help some people for free. I still like to make people apply. I still like to try to get a commitment out of them, that they’re going to take it seriously and show up and all of that but otherwise I’m happy to do it for free. It’s a win hopefully both ways.

There are other times when I will give my courses or coaching away for free if it’s a family member or a really close friend and I just really want to help them out for some reason. I have done that. I will do that on occasion. But the rest of the time I don’t and here’s the thing is I always try to and I recommend that you do at least, tell yourself the truth when you give stuff away for free. Tell yourself the truth that I am choosing to serve here unless it’s like I said, a strategic sort of beta test kind of situation.

Then I am choosing to serve this person because they’re a member of my family or a close friend or for whatever reason. Or I’m choosing to go speak at this event, this church thing, I’ll speak at church, stuff for free all the time. I’m choosing to serve for free or maybe really low priced because it’s what I want to do. If you don’t remind yourself of that it’s easy to grow resentful.

And if that’s not the truth. If what’s really true is that you’re just uncomfortable saying no, you feel bad saying no, you don’t want to say no because you’ve been giving stuff away for free to everyone in the neighborhood and now other people are asking for it and you feel bad then listen up. This is what I want to tell you is first of all when people ask you for your service don’t assume that they mean for free. And maybe they do mean for free but I just always assume they mean that they’re willing to pay me for it.

You could just decide to start assuming that if you want to. And might you be wrong? Yes, but that’s okay. If you follow the process I’m going to give you here, there’s a natural built-in way for people to select doubt if they’re not willing to pay for it. Now, you may have to clean up your thinking around this. You may have to decide that it’s alright for you to charge for something that’s valuable.

Sometimes I laugh because I’m like, imagine that you have a friend in your ward who’s a dentist, would you be like, “Oh my gosh, you fill cavities. My daughter has a cavity. Would you be willing to hook us up and just fill in her cavity for free?” You would never say that because you value the work that a dentist does. You know that’s how he earns his living. You know that’s how he makes money, he or she. And so you know that of course that’s going to cost money. You might say though, “Oh my gosh, my daughter needs a dentist or I need a dentist, can I come and see you?”

And what you would probably mean by that is I know that it’s going to cost money. Either myself or my insurance is going to pay for it. So I just assume because I view myself as a professional, you’re going to have to view yourself as a professional that has something valuable to offer that when people ask me that they understand that there’s probably going to be a fee. And I highly recommend that part of your intake process does include something either free or very low priced.

And so the answer when people ask me if I can help is always, “Yes.” So if somebody says, “You’re a coach, oh my goodness, I think I need a coach. Could you coach me?” And again I’m talking like somebody I go to church with or just a friend I meet. And they say, “Can you coach me?” I say, “Yes, I absolutely can.”

So back when I was doing private coaching I would say, “Here’s how it works. I will text you later today the link to my calendar and you just sign up for a free 30 minute session and it’ll give me an idea of what’s going on for you, what you want help with. It’ll give you a taste of how I coach. And then if we decide it’s a fit both ways I will tell you all about what the next steps would be and how much it costs and all the details you need to make a decision.” So I always say, “Yes, I would love to help you.” And in fact the first step is free. It should be, there should be something either free or really low priced.

Now that I don’t do consults that way because my business model has changed, instead of saying, “Go to my calendar and sign up for a free 30 minute”, whatever, I say, “Yes, I would love to help you. Go to this link that I will send you”, or I tell them, “And sign up for a $19 coaching intensive. It’s the best way for you to get a feel for what it’s like to be in my coaching program and see if it’s a fit for you. And if you do like it you’ll learn all about how to join my program and what that entails and we’ll even apply your $19 towards it. If you don’t, that’s okay, you’ll get a whole week’s worth of amazing coaching and content for 19 bucks.”

The answer is always yes and then I explain the process. If I didn’t have a coaching intensive or something I might say, “Yes, I can totally help you. Go to my podcast and listen to these three episodes. And if you like them then go to this website and check out my program and it will tell you how the pricing works and how this works.” Do you see what I’m saying? So you need to have a clear intake process.

If you teach, maybe you play the piano and people are constantly saying to you, “Could you teach my kid to play the piano? He would love to play the piano.” You’d say yes if you want to take students that is. Then you’d say, “Yes, I’d be happy to. The first step is.” And then what is the first step? Do you do a free 30 minutes mini lesson where your child gets to see how you teach and you get to meet the child? And then if it’s going to be a fit or do you have a video that you want them to watch and it teaches them some basics of the piano and they get to meet you on video and then if they like it you let them know what’s available for time slots and how much it costs?

I don’t know, but have some kind of it, I like there to be with service based offers, there should be some kind of a little bit of a trial. And it should be either inexpensive or free. And that is where you send everybody who wants your help, whether they meant they wanted it for free or not, it’s okay. They’re going to get some free help and then they’re going to get the opportunity to either move forward and pay you or not.

People say to me, especially again, members of the LDS church, they say, “Well, you know, everybody expects everything for free.” And I don’t disagree with that but I do think that if you think everybody expects it for free, you’re assuming that and you might be wrong in some cases. I have this happen to me all the time. I actually prefer to pay even my closest friends for their services because I want the full treatment.

If you’re a photographer and I’m like, “I want to pay you.” And she’ll say, “No, I’m not going to charge you, you’re my good friend. How could I charge you?” And I’m like, “No, I want to pay you. I don’t want you to give me a deal. I want to pay you top dollar.” You know why? I want to be able to expect that you’re going to treat me the same way you would treat anyone else who’s paying top dollar. I want to be able to go, “Hey, you said my photos would be ready by this day and they’re not ready, where are they?”

I want to get the full service but I would love to hire you, my friend instead of someone else I don’t know, but please charge me. So a lot of times when I ask people about their services or their offers, if they’re friends of mine they assume I mean I want it for free and I don’t. And in fact I have to convince them to charge me in many cases. So listen, it doesn’t matter whether everyone’s assuming that or not. You have to assume that you’re a professional and that people understand that and if they don’t, that’s fine as long as you understand that.

And you need to have the same process that a professional would have. You need to treat them like they are a real legit client or customer and that is how you get out of this whole freeloading resentment spiral that I see so many people end up in. Don’t do that, you don’t need to. No more freeloaders. Who’s in? Come to Instagram if you want help with this. Come and DM me.

If you have specifics that you’re like, “What about this, what about that?” DM me on Instagram but I do recommend that you create for yourself, if you’re going to do what I sort of talked about in the beginning with my immediate family and a handful of my really close friends I will sometimes allow into my things at a discounted or free rate. But I already know basically who those people are. And beyond that it’s a no.

I don’t do trades. I don’t negotiate because to me a trade is just kind of messy. Who’s to say that what you’re giving me is worth the same as what I’m giving you? Maybe what you’re giving me is worth way more than what I’m giving you. Now we have this weird resentment. But if we just like, “Whatever your stuff costs, I will pay you money for that. Whatever my stuff costs, you pay me money for that.” Then we have really clean transactions and no opportunity for resentment. And I just prefer to do it that way. So I have a clear boundary.

So whenever people say to me, “Can we do a trade?” I say, “I’m so sorry, I just don’t do trades. I just like to keep it really clean. I pay you, you pay me.” So I don’t have to think about it, negotiate it every time. And even with, like I said, I will speak at church things for free any time as long as it’s within a reasonable driving distance of my house. I don’t travel places to do free speaking events unless there’s a really strategic reason that serves my business or maybe something, a skill I’m trying to develop or something like that.

But just because somebody asks me to, I have to have clean boundaries like that for myself so I don’t have to constantly be remaking the decision. Because I’ve got to take care of my business. I’ve got to take care of my family and myself. And it just keeps it really simple so that I don’t have to make those decisions. I have a really generous intake process that gives people tons of help. So if they listen to my podcast, if they come to a low priced or a free next step they’re going to get amazing help even if they decide never to sign up for my stuff.

So I feel really good about being able to then have those clean boundaries and you can set that up too, my friend. Again, come to Instagram, I’m Jody Moore Coaching on there. And if you have specific questions just send them over and I will keep an eye on it. Alright, thanks for joining me today, everybody. I’ll see you next week, bye bye.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.