I get approached a lot by people who want me to help them do something, but they don’t see why they should pay for it—and I’m not alone.

I can’t tell you the number of times while pitching work and applying for jobs that I’ve been asked to create a marketing plan, or to write a piece of thought leadership, or to conduct a comprehensive edit of existing materials, for free. Not only is this exactly the kind of work I charge clients for, but if I agree to do it, I’m also taking time away from that paying client work. If I had agreed to write this marketing plan, it would have taken about four hours of my time; they would have wound up with a functional marketing plan, and I would have wound up four hours of billable time in the hole.

Want to learn how you can do better? See the full piece on Medium.