You’re in business to make money. These days, that sounds like a dirty little secret, but all businesses exist to make money. To reward the owners. The shareholders. To turn a profit. 
 
Therefore, you charge your clients for everything you do. 
 
Or do you? 
 
Or should you? 
 
In this article, we’ll dive into the reasons you should, or shouldn’t, provide some hard, payable work for free. It’s based on lots of experience, with lots of clients—and often, their clients. 
 
The cold-reality ROI argument
 
You’ve surely heard of a “loss leader.” Something that gets a prospect in the door for a super-attractive price. “Super-attractive,” as in “untenable.” Hence the “loss” you take on it. 
 
Ever played a scratch-off Monopoly game at McDonald’s and won a free order of French fries? C’mon. You think McDonald’s will lose money on that one? Remember: You can’t claim that prize on that visit. You have to come back.
 
So would you ever, honestly, make a trip to McDonald’s, and only order French fries? Even if they’re free? Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would anyone else. 
 
Hence the “cold, hard ROI” argument for freebies. Which goes something like this: 
 
Sure, you can give away something for free—just so long as you’re virtually assured that you’ll end up making way more than the value of what you gave away, from that same client or customer.
 
Ooof. How cold. How… Darwinian. 
 
It’s the little things
 
First off, know that we here at Copel Communications toss out freebies to our clients from time to time. Typically, they’re what we’d consider “too small to charge for.” We recently did a little quick-turn project for a client that, while admittedly urgent, simply wasn’t a huge amount of work for us. 
 
So what were we going to do at the end of the month? Line-item it for, say, 50 bucks? 
 
Naah. We refuse to nickel-and-dime like that. 
 
Still, we did list it on that month’s invoice. But the price? “N/C.” 
 
Surprise and delight
 
Sometimes, tossing out the freebie is just the right thing to do—especially if you’ve got a longstanding relationship with a client and the right project comes along and you can afford to do it. 
 
Ever give your dog a treat not because he chased a squirrel away from your bird feeder, but rather "just because”? This is like that. 
 
True story: We have a client that competes in an incredibly high-tech field. In fact, among our tech-savvy clients, this is one of the savviest, to the point where it’s always challenging to write for them—to assume that mantle of brilliance. It’s difficult and daunting. 
 
Yet we must be doing something right, because this client keeps turning to us with projects for years and years. 
 
One day, however, the owner of this business hit us with an unusual request. Turns out he was running for town council in the area where he lived, and wanted our help with some of his campaign materials. 
 
Man oh man. We knew this would be a freebie the instant we saw it. 
 
He sent us some fliers. And posters. And emails. And what-not. Asking us to clean them up, and bill him for whatever it required. 
 
Now we know this guy and you don’t. Trust us: He’s a great person. Any town council would be blessed to have him aboard. 
 
We were flattered, and honored, to work on this stuff. Sure, we had other paying gigs on the calendar, but were happy to carve out time for him. And when we turned to it, we hit it out of the park. 
 
Our client was delighted! He was so grateful—perhaps especially because this assignment fell outside of his usual high-tech comfort zone. “Send us your invoice,” he said. 
 
And so we sent it. With every single item line-itemed. We showed the “rack rate” for each thing—what it would cost in the real world—and even added up the total cost. 
 
And then, below that, we subtracted the entire total cost, with the note: “Courtesy discount." 
 
Amount due? Zero. 
 
If you think this client was delighted by the work we did, you can only imagine how surprised and happy he was to find out he was getting it for free. 
 
And we felt great. It still feels good, simply re-telling this story. 
 
Happy ending?
 
So, this client immediately came back and rewarded us with zillions of dollars’ worth of fresh, new work. Right? 
 
Wrong. In fact, it was months before he needed our services again. 
 
Are we bitter? Not at all! This is the antithesis of the “cold-reality ROI” argument. We’d call it the “spark of humanity” argument. A little Christmas, when it isn’t Christmas. 
 
Businesses exist to turn a profit. But they’re also run by people who live lives. Sometimes you simply need to connect at that very basic level. 
 
Have thoughts on this issue or a story to share? Contact us. We’d love to hear it. 

There’s a lot more to a business relationship than money
 
Show of hands: How many of you recognized the Johnnie Cochran reference in this article’s headline? 
 
How many of you have even heard of Johnnie Cochran? 
 
Not important for this article and its takeaways. But we couldn’t resist. (Here’s a cheat-sheet, if you’re curious.) 
 
Here’s the point: When you make the commitment to a new client or job, you’re committing to a lot more than getting the job done. You’re committing to doing the best by your client, and by your business, at the same time.
 
That’s why that initial commitment you make—your go/no-go decision—is so huge. It’s not about the project. It’s about the fit. The longer we’re in business, the more we see this to be true, every single day. We recently had an experience that sparked this topic, and we’ll get to it in a minute. But first, let’s look at “what a good fit” is, and isn’t. 
 
What must fit?
 
As a consultant, you’ve got a variety of skills. These translate to a menu of offerings. For them, you charge a certain range of prices. So that would seem to delineate the whole problem, right? Skills, offerings, pricing. 
 
If only it were that simple. 
 
Not to exclude those parameters—they’re important. But to make your clients happy, to help them actually succeed and get better at what they do, while making yourself happy and poising yourself to grow your business, you need to weigh in more factors than those. 
 
Let’s start with the obvious, and parse those three attributes first. 

• Skills. Your skill set is based on your experience and expertise. Sure, you like to grow and stretch your muscles, but don’t go for cramps. If that new prospect is waving dollars your way, but needs skills that you don’t have, politely pass. You’ll sleep better. You won’t set yourself up to fail. And that prospect may well come knocking again, for your exact services, especially now that they respect your professionalism and candor. 

 

• Offerings. Same case here. Don’t get us wrong: There will be times when your experience in Realms A and B provide the perfect setup for a Realm C offering, due to overlap and/or synergies. In which case, yes, that’s a wonderful fit. And it’s also a time for candor. Tell your prospect exactly that. (We just helped a client of ours with this exact communication challenge: They had tons of experience helping clients with “Challenge B” which, as it turns out, is downstream of/helps to manage the fallout of Challenge A. So we crafted messaging to new “Challenge A Prospects,” in which we said, basically, “Hey, all our experience with Challenge B can help you with Challenge A, because we know what kinds of things fall through the cracks in the first place!” It was a creative, and effective, spin on “Hey, we’ve never done this before, but boy would it ever be a great fit.”)

 

• Pricing. You need to stay within your comfort zone here. If you find yourself low-balling your own prices before you start, or perhaps agreeing to 90-day terms when you don’t accept them, hit the Pause button. That smacks of desperation—and will invariably come back to bite you later. The last thing you want is to find yourself, at some time in the future, resenting that new client or the project you’d agreed to… especially if you’re the one to blame for undercutting yourself unnecessarily. 

 
So those are the obvious “fit” issues. Here are some others, which may not be as obvious: 

• Timing. Some prospects have a “drop-everything” approach to deadlines—as in, it doesn’t matter what you’ve got on your plate, they want it now/you need to push back all your other clients. If that works for you, great. Go for it. Personally, it doesn’t work for us. We always maintain a degree of scheduling cushion to accommodate client exigencies, but that kind of “blow off everyone else for me” approach doesn’t work for us. It’s not a good fit. 

 

• Ethics. Not long ago, we were approached by a prospect whose business we couldn’t quite figure out. What were they selling? To whom? It wasn’t very clear. This was a red flag right away, regardless of their apparently very deep pockets. It didn’t take much digging around the internet to discover that their business was operating in a gray area of legality; indeed, we learned of this by finding all the lawsuits that were being pressed against them. Reading about these, all the hazy details came into focus: They had been purposely made unclear, to confuse consumers/sow distrust… the basis for all the lawsuits. We politely declined. Bottom line: Trust your gut. If you get a bad feeling about a new prospect, there’s a reason. 

 

• Politics. Here at Copel Communications, we’re expressly apolitical. That said, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have our own personal political viewpoints; ditto for our clients and prospects. Things only become a problem if politics get in the way. We’ve actually written for genuine political campaigns, on either side of the aisle, and we’re fine with that, so long as the case we’re being asked to present is cogent and compelling. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. You want to avoid getting in bed with a client who’s going to make you feel uncomfortable, simply in the context of doing your work. If you find yourself biting your tongue before you even start, you might want to reconsider. Is that really “a good fit”? 

 

• Personality. We generally consider ourselves fortunate in this does-it-fit category, but it’s really somewhat self-selecting. If all of the other factors above—skills, offering, pricing, timing, ethics, and politics—align, then the odds are strong that there won’t be any personality conflicts, either. We can handle lots of different personality types, from the warm-and-fuzzy to the in-your-face; all we require is candor. If you detect (usually after the fact) evidence of prevarication or elusiveness, watch out. That never ends well. 

 
We’d mentioned above that a recent event sparked this blog topic. And here’s what it was: Not long ago, we were contacted by a client from our distant past. It was really neat to reconnect with them, and it was fun to catch up. At the same time, that client’s needs had shifted in one direction, and our offerings had shifted in another. It seemed like it might still be a good fit again, after all this time, but in short order, both parties realized that that wasn’t the case. We parted ways early, before things could get sticky. More importantly, we parted ways amicably. No lost sleep on either side. 
 
If you’ve got communication challenges on your plate, you don’t have to worry if they’d be a good fit, or not, with us. Why? Because we’ll tell you! Contact us today to book that first, assuredly candid, conversation. 

​There are ways to make both parties happy
 
It’s happened to you more times than you’d care to recall: You submit a quote for your services, and the client comes back to you, asking you to cut your price, when you haven’t even done anything yet.
 
Not fun.
 
There are ways to deal with this. Some are a matter of degrees; others are a matter of proper preparation.
 
You want me to what?
 
Oftentimes, a client (or prospect) will seek—sometimes subtly, sometimes not—to change the scope of what you’d bid on. In other words, they’ll want you to do more work, for the same price: “Can you throw in a…?” This is, on its surface, a request for you to lower your price. Beneath the surface, it’s a slight: it suggests that your work simply isn’t worth all that much.
 
Thicken your skin, ignore the unintended insult, and proceed professionally. Actually, of all the situations we’ll discuss in this article, this one is the most straightforward. It requires your calling a spade a spade. But take the high road. Be cheerful: “I would love to do some extra projects for you! Let me bid on those for you separately.”
 
They’ll get the message. Instantly. Want to look like a hero? Bid on the new project, and toss in a little discount. They’ll appreciate the gesture. They come away with extra stuff from you; you come away with more work, and income, than you’d originally anticipated. It’s a win-win.
 
“Is that your best price?”
 
Ever been asked that one? It’s another way for clients to probe if there’s any “fat” in your pricing. Again, if you’re thin-skinned, you’ll perceive a subtle insult in that question. It says, “I know you’re trying to gouge me; perhaps you could gouge me less.”
 
Don your thick skin again. And think of the times when you’ve been the client, perhaps buying a car. Did you simply go with the asking price? Of course not. So appreciate that the client is simply doing their job, negotiating.
 
Now, the answer to “Is that your best price?” may vary. It, honestly, depends on how you’ve priced the project in the first place. We don’t advocate “fattening” up any pricing. You’ll get called on it, especially if it’s out of line with industry norms. And once you concede on the “fat” issue, all of your subsequent pricing will be suspect. It’s a lousy path to embark upon.
 
What’s the payback?
 
Sometimes you might have a long-term client with whom you have a strong working relationship. They may toss you lots of good, lucrative projects. So ask yourself this—and ask them, too: “Is this business development for this client?” That is, if you help them win a new account, would there be more work in it for you when they do?
 
If that’s the case, consider discounting the work. They’re effectively acting as your agent, bringing you work that you might not otherwise get. Agents typically get ten percent. Use that as a starting point for your discount. But you can go deeper—much deeper—depending upon the size of the prize, the odds of your client’s winning it with your help, and the strength of your relationship with that client.
 
Prepare in advance
 
Many times, a client will ask you to bid on a project with insufficient information for you to bid on it.
 
Again, don’t get mad. Put yourself in their shoes: They’re not trying to withhold information from you. They simply don’t know it yet. They probably are trying to get that exact information from their client, but haven’t been able yet.
 
Not a problem. Simply craft your bid appropriately.
 
Here are three approaches to consider:

• The ballpark bid: Rough it up. Consider a price range. And include the caveat: “This is a rough estimate, subject to re-bidding, pending receipt of updated input.” The client won’t get mad. They’ll thank you for helping them work up pricing, quickly, when they need it.

 

• The “menu” approach. Carve up the potential services you might offer on a project like this into discrete line items. Include everything you think might be needed, and toss in a few that might be needed. You won’t include a total for the project; you can’t. Simply write “Total varies depending upon scope of project.”

 

• Hourly. We generally prefer to bid on a per-project basis. But sometimes that’s impractical. We recently were given the heads-up on an assignment that would require review and analysis of reams of pre-existing research from our client’s client. But the number of “reams” was a mystery when our bid was due. So we worked up an hourly rate for that, and added it as a line item.

 
When you work this way, no one—neither you nor your client—will be surprised when the detailed specs arrive. You can simply go about your business, do your work, and get paid appropriately.
 
When to walk
 
Sure, you can negotiate, and you can give, but there are times when you need to do neither. If you can’t make a profit on a proposed price, or if it would set a dangerous precedent for you, or if it simply under-values your services to the point where it’s untenable, say no. Politely. It’s the right thing to do. A good client (or prospect) will take no offense, and respect you for holding your ground. And quite often, that same client (or prospect) will come back to you before long, because you’ve boosted their professional respect for you. And that’s something that money can’t buy.
 
Need help with a proposal, RFP response, or anything else that requires pricing of your services? Contact us. We’d love to help.