No, this isn’t about doing work for free. That is a dopey business model. (I speak from experience here.)

And it’s not about doing work on spec. Which is mostly an exercise in jackoffery. Run away from that.

I’m talking about giving away advice, expertise, game plans, ideas — even that BIG idea that can literally make a client’s project.  The best stuff you have.

It is the simplest way to make potential clients love you at least 187% more than your competitors. While you land the paying work.

Quick example.

A client of mine needed to revamp her website and her client presentations. I’m guessing the design work was worth somewhere between $8K to $10K.

After asking colleagues for recommendations and poking around designers’ web sites, she found two firms she seemed to like. (They were, in reality, one- and two-person operations. Freelancers.)

She had a few phone conversations with each firm, describing what she was hoping to do. The calls, she said, were interesting and helpful.

But what happened after the calls made all the difference.

A day or so later, one firm sent her an elegant portfolio, some ‘case studies’ of recent projects, rave reviews from other clients, an essay on their design process/philosophy, and a rough budget range. It was all flawlessly and impeccably designed.

The other firm sent a two-page email — in plain text — offering about twenty suggestions and ideas for addressing the issues with the current site and presentations.

They started at a high level, with thoughts on a simpler color scheme, redoing the logo to save vertical space, and different ways to chunk the content, all the way down to recommending a line length for text columns, and using a freebie plugin for their whitepaper downloads.

As my client told me, the effect of that was huge.

“One firm was all about ‘here’s how brilliant we are.’ The other firm was all about me. My site, my issues.

“They obviously spent time looking at my site and thinking about it. They were immediately on my side, looking for ways to make my presentations kick ass, and freely sharing very specific thoughts and suggestions. I instantly knew who I wanted to work with.”

The dynamic is easy to understand.

Telling clients about the genius things you did for someone else:  a snooze.

Telling them how talented you are: a bore.

Talking about their project, their product, their strong points, and neatly specific things that they could do:  endlessly and eternally fascinating.

But isn’t this risky?

Okay, that winning design firm ‘gave away’ a blueprint for upgrading the site.

Theoretically, the client could have taken those ‘ideas’ and used them herself for free.  (Which is what cynical freelancers always fear.)

Except in my experience, clients almost never swipe the idea and run with it. (Maybe that’s only because my ideas suck. Which is entirely possible.)

But it’s also because even the most ‘valuable’ idea usually entails a whole lot of actual work to pull off.

Steve Zelle at idapostle illustrates the difference brilliantly. There’s a nine-mile gap between an ‘idea’ and something a client can actually use – and pay for.

We freelancers aren’t selling ideas. We’re selling execution.  Implementation. Actually building the damn thing, writing the copy, creating the illustrations, shooting the video, rendering the logo.

That’s where your mortgage payment is.

And giving away the ‘idea’ is the easiest way to win it.

Making this work

Yes, sorry, this takes a little effort.  Instead of simply sending off a portfolio or your website url, it will take some thinking. But I’m guessing, at most, it will take no more than an hour or so.

No, you don’t have to write copy, do sketches, write code, design the interface.

Just offer your impressions, your recommendations, your off-the-top ideas.  Yes, they will be preliminary.  Things may change later.  That’s okay. Show them what you’re thinking, how you’d approach this, the easiest ways to fix this.

To show you what I mean, I pulled three examples straight from my email files, which you can download here. Other than changing names and specifics for confidentiality purposes, these aren’t prettied up in any way. (I think there are even a few typos in there.)  They all resulted in work.  Simply by giving away ideas.

If you look at these and think, ‘Heck I can do better than that,’ good for you. Go do it next time.

One caveat.

Never, ever, bash what the client has right now.

Rather than ‘why this sucks out loud, talk about ‘neat things you could do.’