Want to Get Paid More Later? Be Strategically Free, Never Secretly Free.
Karl Sakas — March 29, 2017 Follow @KarlSakas— March 29, 2017
Choose to be strategic: Strategically free, not secretly free
If you do things outside of scope, you’re doing them for free. Many of my clients do free work for clients they want to keep, or because they aren’t comfortable raising their project asking price. If you don’t even tell your clients about it, you are doing secretly free work, not strategically free.
I don’t recommend doing free work on a regular basis, but if you do it occasionally, make sure it’s strategically free, not secretly free.
When something is secretly free, your agency is taken advantage of. The client doesn’t know that their marketing agency delivered pro bono work, and it sets an unhealthy precedent: if your agency did something at this price before (and didn’t call it out as a special deal), why can’t you do it again? Good luck recovering from that.
When something is strategically free, you have more control over client expectations. You still do the work for free, but you let the client know that this is a special consideration just for them. This helps with warmth, and makes it clear that you won’t deliver free work all the time.
One way to word something as strategically free could be:
Hey [client], I just wanted to let you know that the work we did on [project] was out-of-scope. I’ve decided to comp you these services as a special consideration for you and your business. If you would like something similar in the future, those services would start at [price].
Let the client know exactly how much money they saved, and make sure that they know to expect to pay it the next time they request something similar.
Scenarios for “strategically free” work
When you do “strategically free” work, you’re ultimately framing things as a “quid pro quo” (aka “this for that”). It’s not always financial; sometimes it’s about relaxing a policy.
- Frame a discount to a “hot brand” new client as a one-time special deal in exchange for X.
- Free web-based follow-up training for a client that commits to three in-person sessions.
- Add a no-charge A/B test of a new technology the agency is trying, where client would pay to continue after the first three months.
- Because of a mistake by your agency earlier in the process, you’ll add two free revisions in the next milestone.
- You’ll schedule kickoff before receiving the deposit next week, because they’re a long-time retainer client.
What to do if you’ve already done the work
If you’ve already done something that’s “secretly free,” be sure to call it out instead of covering it up. Let your clients know that you’ve already over-delivered, and set expectations for next time.
Question: Have you or your agency done work for free before? How did you make sure to get paid the next time?
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