Please pardon the borderline-naughty language today! (Hey, notice the byline — it’s NOT Jayme Soulati.)
One of my exes was a drummer who took the idea of his drumming pretty seriously. He was forever getting the “let’s hang out sometime and jam” from not-as-serious musicians. Privately, these requests outraged him. “I’m a PROFESSIONAL. I don’t f*!@n jam,” he seethed at me after yet another one of these requests.
Recently my best friend Steph and I decided to borrow this phrase and apply it to requests for free labor. You know, “Can I pick your brain?” or even “want to be a part of my project (where I’ll end up sticking you with all the work)?”
“Sorry, I don’t f*!@n jam.”
Possibly this is an internal response. But slackers and cheapskates be warned: we don’t f*!@n jam.
Do You Jam?
Michelle Quillin of New England Multimedia asked recently on FB “How do you handle requests for “free” or “super-reduced price” services with a promise of “future work” and “referrals”?”
My polite response was: “’thanks but no thanks’ in most cases, “yes” in very special cases.” Of course, what I meant was the above (sing it with me!), “I don’t f*!@n jam.”
Small businesses need to be careful about jamming. You want to say yes, because saying yes feels good…right until you finish saying it, when it starts to feel terrible. Projects drag on and on. Your ideas are stolen and profited from. The “future work” and “referral” payoff never come.
Davina Brewer posted how she handles the “jam” request –she lays out some good responses you can actually say aloud. I particularly like step #1 – “tell ‘em it costs money.”
Gini Dietrich wrote about the true cost of brain-picking here. Her argument is, “…[in] industries where people sell their brains for a living…Time is how we make our money. We don’t make widgets. We don’t sell products. We don’t manufacture anything. We don’t process anything. Our brains are our products and…every time someone asks us for free help, they’re taking us away from clients or opportunities to make us money.”
Who’s In Your Band?
On the other hand, you’ll play music with your band, won’t you? So who’s in your band? For me, I’ll always help out a friend, because my friends rock and give it back to me in spades. If they don’t pay me, they’ll return the favor for sure.
If I don’t already have a relationship (business or personal) with someone, they aren’t in my band. No jamming.
So…do you jam?
Have you jammed? What was the result? How do you handle jamming requests?
(Image: Flickr Creative Commons by Jonas Bengtsson)
What a great post-Jenn and friends are right on the experience and knowledge base we have accumulated should be a source of value and therefore it should be about business and revenue production.I am a soft touch though for kids just out of school looking for their first job. I will give them the time and direction they are not getting elsewhere! So I do jam once in awhile!
Tony – thank you for commenting. Especially since you raise a great point. I will jam with new graduates too! I do enjoy mentoring. Thanks for reminding me of this.
Tony, I’ve been so burned by the kids out of school thing. Something has changed from when we were in school. What is it? Sat at dinner last evening at a professor’s house with 12 students from his class. I have interesting observations from that experience. Also, time given to some of those I’ve helped goes into a black hole and respect in return is non-existent (not always).
Not at all offended by the headline Jenn .. as I’m sure you can get from my purple prose and graphics. 😉 I get to quote yesterday’s soloPR chat as this was a topic of discussion:
– All free gets you is more invitations to do free work.
– “We’re non-profit.” “But I am.”
– I watched one buddy give free advice to a “friend” at a prospective client. Every week .. for a year. Big waste of time.
There is of course plenty more, https://soloprpro.com/unbilled-work-tracking-client-progress-new-business/ but the gist is that you have to manage expectations and if they’re in business, they should respect that you are too. I’ve sort of given up on this kind of nickel-and-dime client; I can find other ways to pay bills until I find clients who get that they pay in quarter and dollars, Monopoly money not accepted. 😉
Now helping a friend, that’s a whole other story. I’ll jump in with a quick guest post, totally helped a friend with some design ‘work’ for a personal event, etc. etc. So long as my band will play backup for me, I’m cool with helping as I can. Anyone else, it’s the ‘it costs money’ not just a cup of coffee thing. FWIW.
I knew I could count on you not to take offense Davina! Thanks for sharing the quotations from the solo PR chat. I think it helps people to have these phrases ready to share – you certainly don’t want to say “I don’t f’n jam.” ha!
There have been some other gems in other chats, just can’t remember them all. Then there’s that Vendor/Client video I love so much.. you can always send people that. 😉
Jenn, I love the title! Made me smile and want to read it, so good job there.
Davina, I like the quotes also and concur with the first: “All free gets you is more invitations to do free work.” That has happened to me lately in the form of pro bono work for a performing arts group. They almost didn’t offer me the opportunity to submit a proposal for a marketing contract because I had done some volunteer work for them! Then, when I did submit the proposal, my previous expectation set (free) didn’t resonate with the proposal submitted (money). Duh! Invaluable lesson learned.
Like you, Jenn and most everyone else, I’ll help a friend for sure! So call me anytime!! 🙂
Hey @EricaAllison:disqus I missed this when I checked the comments last night, so sorry about that!
I’m glad I seem to have made people smile/laugh with my near-obscenity. Hooray! Seems like we’ve all gotten burned in one way or another with the “please give me something for free” approach. Let “I don’t f-n jam” be our group’s mantra to keep us away from such projects!
And thanks Erica – I’m happy to help you too!
I’m from the South. My grandmother always told me, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Don’t give it away. We all undervalue ourselves in our knowledge. Not everyone will sit for hours reading blogs and learning. We all know people who wanted to short cut school. (My hand is raised!) It was easier to bat my eyelashes and have someone do my work instead of me actually learning. It my adults years, I learned if I dig hard enough, it will pay off. We need to learn to sell our brains, our knowledge and ourselves. We rock!
@twitter-244591334:disqus thanks so much for weighing in (I don’t know how I missed this).
Your comment about school reminded me – it’s like all those kids who wanted to “borrow” my homework or cheat off me! Isn’t it? We never do get out of the schoolyard! (or the barnyard as per your cow comment).
Great post Jenn!!! I love that phrase and I dig the sentiment. I’ve often jammed on the “promise” of referalls but stopped big time last year. The only people I jam with now are friends or someone I truly believe in.
I walked away from helping a “jammer” in January after being strung along for way too long. They then came back to me for work and I politely quoted my full rate. After 24 hours they came back to me having accepted the deal.
PS Maybe someone could photoshop a “I don’t F*!@-n Jam” banner for my website!
Jon, I’m so glad this resonated with you! Steph claims she’s written “I don’t F*!@n Jam” on the backs of her business cards.
I think we all jam at one point or another. Jamming is where you start. And then after awhile…no more. Good job on getting that client to sign up for money.
Great post, Jenn!
Just a year ago, I had this discussion on an obscure thread somewhere online, and wrote a blog post about it: “Is Free Ever a Good Thing For Creatives?” >> https://bit.ly/mwNYEV
And then, just a few months ago, we fell for it again, this time with a local guy with a big smile and friendly handshake, a lot of back patting, and a charming personality. He played the “new friend” card, though, and made a lot of promises he never intended to keep, got a free website out of us in return for those promises, and then dropped us. Suffice it to say, we got bitten by a snake who’s trying to pass himself off as someone he’s not. To make things even worse, after picking Scott’s brain for hours about SEO and marketing, he’s now launching a competitor brand (or trying to)! That’s what he was after the whole time.
I can smile and keep going, knowing that even the most elaborately-colored egg eventually begins to stink to high heavens. Still, it’s hard not to become a cynic who eyeballs everyone suspiciously.
Here’s my advice: unless you’d do it for free, and with no expectations of a return of any kind, don’t do it at all. That way, if you get burned, you won’t care. It was a gift anyway.
A competitor?! Michelle, I am so sorry to hear that! It’s terrible to be taken advantage of. I hope both you and Scott will put a less potty-mouthed spin on my mantra and say it to yourselves when you get approached by jammers again!
Thanks for weighing in, and for the inspiration for today’s post.
Well, he said he wasn’t a competitor, and he started out that way, then turned out to be brainstorming his own brand behind the scenes while getting as much out of us as possible. It’s going to be interesting running into him at local networking events! We’ll just keep smiling and working our butts off, though, knowing that cream eventually rises to the top while dirt slowly floats to the bottom. These are lessons that can only be learned in the trenches, right?
Rockin’ post Jenn! I learned early in my professional career that I don’t do ‘volunteer’ work when someone else volunteers me, nor do I “jam.”
It’s true, I echo the sentiments included here: it doesn’t lead to paid work; it does little to enhance your reputation; and typically doesn’t result in satisfaction for either party. So, add me to the list “I don’t F*!@n jam” either.
As for the mentoring aspects, I’ve mostly learned to stick to hired interns, or young professional staff to offer guidance and advice. Typically,
to those who seek to learn and understand. In return I expect nothing but the satisfaction of sharing my personal experience that they may learn from it. If I’m paying attention, I may learn a few things from them too. And honestly, I haven’t had this experience in the recent past, the current crop of grads and new hires seems to think they know it all already.
Patty, thanks so much for your comment today! I think I’m going to make tshirts or something.
A mentor of mine dealt with potential mentees this way – if someone came to him wanting to learn about his field of expertise, he would typically tell them how he was so delighted to teach them, and then give them an assignment (usually to write a paper). He would never hear from them again.
Oh Jenn, I love that! And put me in line for the Tshirt:)
Steph approves! Thanks for reacquainting me with this concept last month–I’m moving forward with clearer ideas about my professional worth and how to pursue future engagements with colleagues. It’s about time that my time *means* something.
Hear, hear!
We raised our rates significantly in 2008. Yes, as the economy was tanking. And no one batted an eye when we did it. No one has ever said, “Your rates are too high” (which leads me to believe we still don’t charge enough) and no one has ever balked at paying us what we charge. But the people who think you can help them for free are the ones that kill me. For those of us who make money with our time, there are a gazillion ways to pick our brains. Here…let me Google that for you.
I want to find who these “give me something for free” people are and find out what makes them tick! How do they rationalize this internally?
Thanks for weighing in, Gini.
Oh my gosh, this post is the bomb! Particularly in a small community, where one might volunteer a lot on other things/levels, there comes an expectation that one will do pro bono work in one’s field of expertise. NOT!
When I first moved to where I live now, I did indeed “volunteer” my services, even in my business consulting/coaching business, as I was entrenching into the community. Think the line from Pretty Woman…. BIG mistake! It took a while to extricate myself from that misguided folly, so I underscore the advice of Jenn: I don’t jam!
There’s a great quote by Jim Rohn that says ‘You don’t charge the client for the hour – you charge them for the value you bring to that hour.’ It’s a great reminder to all of us that we aren’t taxi cabs, getting paid for time…we’re getting paid for expertise and value. Cheers!
Ha, Kaarina, I’m so glad you liked this! I mean, it’s sad that it resonates with people so…but at least we’re getting to laugh at it! I know when I first started in social media I volunteered a lot of thinking, etc, for people – now I’ve pulled waaaay back, mostly to preserve personal time. Thanks for sharing some great quotations too!