by Diane Hughes
© 2003
It's a sticky situation. A prospect, a site visitor, or just
a casual acquaintance asks for your help or advice on something.
You gladly give it, thinking it's a one-time favor. But
instead of providing a little free advice, you've opened the
door to an onslaught of mooching! Now, every time you check
your email, you find question after question. What do you do?
This is a problem many online business owners face.
You want to appear friendly and helpful, but the person on
the receiving end of your favor is draining you dry. After
all, these are services you charge for. This is how you make
your living.
Like many folks, you don't want to appear rude or unprofessional.
But the time you take to answer questions and provide help is
taking away from your ability to earn an income. Let me tell
you about one approach that seems to work wonderfully.
Minimal Information
When the repeat offender asks for help, offer a minimal response
to the question. For the sake of illustration, let's say your
area of expertise is in Web site design. If the person asks for
information on making his/her site design more professional, you
might consider saying that adding a top border to the site would
create continuity. You might also mention that having black text
on a white background makes for easier reading (as opposed to
white text with a deep purple background). However, don't go
into details.
This lets you give an answer to the question (instead of just
ignoring them), but doesn't reveal any information you might
charge for.
Honesty Is the Best Policy
Next, be honest. Explain that designing Web sites is what you
do for a living. It's how you earn your income. Let the person
know that you would be more than happy to offer consulting
services or full-fledge design and maintenance services, but
these would come at a cost. Outline your pricing structure
for people so they'll know exactly what each service costs.
This action gets you off the hook (so to speak) and frees
you from having to answer any future questions.
Provide Alternative Resources
Go one final step further and find some alternative, free
resources the person might check into for additional information.
By offering a list of design forums, free ebooks, or information
-packed sites, you're getting yourself out of the picture in a
kind and professional way.
Nine times out of ten, moochers either don't have the money
to pay, or they are unwilling to pay for products and services.
In either case, you're unlikely to make a paying client out of
such people. By using the steps above, you gain your freedom,
and at the same time provide helpful resources where the moocher
can get free information.
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Diane Hughes is an accomplished Internet entrepreneur and
editor of the popular ProBizTips Newsletter. Subscribe to
her newsletter for more tips, tricks, and secrets of the
trade -- plus get HUNDREDS of eBooks, software and tools
just for subscribing! http://www.ProBizTips.com
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