Free work builds relationships that pay back exponentially through favors and connections. The speaker argues most people underestimate how much goodwill and opportunity flow from giving your time without expecting immediate payment.
People don't realize that the ROI on free work is exponential. I met a guy, really successful entrepreneur and investor, and he wanted help writing his speech. He was giving a commencement speech, and I was like, I could either charge money for this now, or I can do this for free and I can call in a favor later. And I chose free because I knew, oh, okay, you know what? I see all these other outcomes that I could get later, and I bet if I do this for you for free, you are going to constantly think about ways to pay me back. Right? Because that's how that type of person things. The reason I still make that decision is because people don't realize that the ROI on free work is exponential, whereas the ROI on paid work, it's just fixed. It's like, hey, I'll pay you five grand. But I've done so much free work for people over the years that that's why my network is the way that it is, because people go, well, I remember when you helped me write my commencement speech, so what do you need? Trying to raise money. Here's 10 people trying to do this. Here's the right person to talk to. You have a question about that, you should go talk to that person.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
