Sometimes it’s better to give than to charge.

I tend to do a lot of work for free. This web­site is a good exam­ple. I don’t charge for the con­tent, I try not to ham­mer you with adver­tis­ing (in fact, I’m think­ing of ditch­ing the adwords above, as I don’t like the idea), and I don’t beg you for money.

I’ve built a lot of stuff for peo­ple in the past too. Most of them are char­i­ties, but some are friends, some are only acquaintances…

There are a num­ber of rea­sons why I do this, but one of the over­rid­ing ones tends to be the has­sle of charg­ing. Some projects are done so quickly it would take me longer to write up a bill, and do all the account­ing than the actual project. Other’s are just because you know the cus­tomer can’t afford you and the price they could pay would almost feel insulting.

There is another ben­e­fit to not charg­ing, you’re not beholden to any­one. If some­one paid you for a job, doesn’t mat­ter how lit­tle, they tend to feel enti­tled to sup­port and upgrades, at the same low price, for a long time. By not charg­ing, they know they can’t really place demands on you.

If I don’t pub­lish an arti­cle every day, who’s going to com­plain? Then again, I’m not even sure any­one out there is even read­ing this site…This atti­tude (free­dom?) would have to change if I was earn­ing a liv­ing doing this.

I read recently how invest­ment bankers wouldn’t put a “sell” rat­ing on stocks because they may lose busi­ness or access to com­pany they track. Here I can say what I think in an unbi­ased way because I don’t ben­e­fit from it. If your source of food is tied to your work, can you remain unbiased?

Many busi­nesses, when they are first start­ing out, often charge less than they’d like. Their think­ing is they will build up clien­tele, and their reputation.

Real­ity though, often plays out dif­fer­ently. Instead of build­ing up a rep­u­ta­tion for good work, they develop a rep­u­ta­tion for being cheap. Even­tu­ally the busi­ness faces the choice of keep­ing a lot of clients who pay low rates, or los­ing a lot of them when they are forced to raise their rates.

In my expe­ri­ence, it takes as much work to land a cheap client as it does and expen­sive one, so you may as well focus in on the ones who can pay more.

What­ever I charge, I never com­pro­mise on the qual­ity of work I pro­duce. I often go above and beyond what is paid for, just to make the project work prop­erly, not charg­ing for the extra time. Even free projects have to work the way I promised. One must pro­tect your rep­u­ta­tion at all costs.

Funny thing is, a lot of those “free­bies” I’ve done have resulted in refer­rals to large con­tracts. It wasn’t by design, I can’t say I planned it that way, I’m not that smart, but good­will does have a way to reward you it seems.

I’m per­son­ally not a big fan of giv­ing money to char­i­ties. I’ve worked on a num­ber of them, and seen how the money is spent. By giv­ing them a prod­uct how­ever, I know my dona­tion is not only well used, it’s well built. It can still be mis­used, but I’ve done my part to limit the misuse.

When it comes to Ten­ants, I also try to be a good land­lord. I don’t nickel and dime my ten­ants to death. If some­thing breaks, I try and repair or replace it quickly. I’ll usu­ally accom­mo­date small requests.

It’s amaz­ing how many of my ten­ants have told me sto­ries about for­mer land­lords (usu­ally the big prop­erty man­agers) about has­sles they’ve had…

I do explain to my ten­ants, that I’m look­ing for a rela­tion­ship with them. I’ll charge them a fair rent, and try to solve all their problems…but I also point out that they are the ones who ulti­mately pay for every­thing, just like a tax­payer has to ulti­mately pay for all the gov­ern­ment ser­vices. I’m not look­ing to get rich off their backs, I’m pro­vid­ing them with value for their money.

Most of my ten­ants have been excel­lent. They under­stand, and keep their demands reasonable…and I, in turn, can keep their rents reasonable.

Of course, there are those out there who will try to abuse my good nature. For those, it’s a lot eas­ier to walk away from a non-paying client, than a pay­ing one. They have no strings attached.

Les­son: Good, Fast or Cheap…pick any two.

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