Why should you give your work for free?

So why you should give your work for free? I know. Listen, hear me out. Welcome to Educational Thursday, where I get to teach you something from my experience. If you don't know who I am, hello, my name is Nia Zavala. And I'll put the link in the description in here so you can watch my building in public process. So I've been in Thailand for the last 2 months. I think the best way to get clients or to test if you even have a product or a service is— drum roll— give your service for free. No, not for free forever. We don't need to exaggerate, but here is the idea. You see, Over the last 20-something days, I had 32 calls. This started when I had an idea to help businesses in need, and my experience for the last 20 years is marketing, sales, and brands. That was easy, and I said I'll give 25 minutes to help. What is this feeling so sudden and new? Guess what? Helping is one of the best things you can do. Why? Because sometimes when you don't know what to do, the best thing is to use your experience, your knowledge, to lift someone else. Then you just feel better. When you feel better, you are more motivated to do certain things like get to work. So the idea was that what if I could help other people? It will make me feel good, and I have knowledge, and I have a bit of time. Now mind you, I didn't take into consideration that this will become 32 calls. This is the interesting thing. On those calls, 3 things happened. Apart from me feeling a lot better, I got a chance to test things, understand where I can help people, and I also realized that most companies today need more sales. You know nothing, Jon Snow. We're gonna give it for free, but we're gonna give 1 hour, so that's 2 30-minute sessions. Why? Because it gives you a chance to test stuff. It's a great marketing tool, and instead of spending money on platforms, let's spend the money— your time, the best, the most important currency you might have— let's spend that on the clients, potential clients, it doesn't matter. We need to get this ball rolling. That's the way you get clients. I think we need to understand in 2025 everything is changing. This algorithm on YouTube, these things, TikTok is gonna exist or not. The one constant is you, your knowledge, and your experience. Try and show people out there that you know what you're talking about. More than that, show them how you can achieve what you claim you can achieve. If the right people see it, guess what? You will have a line outside of the right clients. And they will pay. Sometimes we need to go back to the basics. We're trying to build a rapport. This is what I did for Company X, these are the results, and this is the why offering. The idea is now we're creating content which is based on stories of things we did. True, not everyone is your ideal client, but if you go to people who really need your help, but can't afford it. Early-stage startups, small businesses, whatever you might define. Go and give back, and in exchange you tell them upfront, hey, if this works out, I'm gonna ask you for 2 or 3 things if that's okay. If you enjoyed it, would you mind giving me a testimonial? Great. Do you mind if I use the Shorts so I'll have content and I'll share the story without your mentioning your name or stuff? Suddenly you have a content calendar of stuff you can do if you only helped 2 companies a week. That's an hour. If you do have relevant people that you might help, it's a great glimpse for them to do the lead magnet, and they can understand, they can see what you have to offer. They appreciate it. At the end, you can still say, hey, this is the full package. If you want anything, I I'm happy to chat. If not, can I ask you for a recommendation, the testimonial, or would you mind posting something about the work? Again, I'm trying to build rapport and I'll have content to use. The third thing, and that's kind of what happened to me jumping from call to call, someone said, hey, would you mind doing this? Can you offer this? What's your service? So out of those 32 calls, and again, and I'll show you, I charge per hour if someone wants to talk to me. I prefer not to do the amount of calls I used to, but this has been a crazy time. What was interesting then, I actually got 2 or 3 referrals, someone that asked for help. We're launching this mastermind to help entrepreneurs build their marketing plans. So going out to help ended up becoming a great opportunity. Lead magnet, business amplifier, whatever you want to call it, and I'm actually launching new stuff. More than that, I just got booked to do a talk in India in March. So should you help people for free? Hell yeah. The question is, how are you going to tell them? What are you going to help them with? Do you even have any ideas? And yes, I do believe that this is a new type of marketing moving forward. Spend less money on dumb stuff. Let people know you exist. Tell them what you do and show them that you actually are a practitioner, that you are actually getting the job done day in, day out. One small thing I want to tell you. If you can't, can't give your work for free, if there's no line outside Of your door, there's a problem. Your value proposition isn't structured enough. Your service isn't needed. Maybe you need to reconsider everything. That's my suggestion. That's what I'm going with. Why not do it? Why? Because you're afraid? Because you don't know how people will react? Say, hey, I got a free hour. Anyone needs help? By the way, I remember I did this. It was September 2022. I got stuck in the Istanbul airport. I had a layover. There were no hotel rooms, no hotel rooms whatsoever. I sat at Starbucks for 12 hours. I had nothing to do, no place to sleep, only connecting my Wi-Fi and connecting my electricity laptop. What can you do with that? I went online on LinkedIn and said, hey guys, listen, I'm stuck here. I got like 7 hours left. Who needs help? With marketing and branding. Guess what? It got me work. But more than that, I felt good. I was utilizing my time a certain way. I managed to help a great woman doing something amazing to help women entrepreneurs come back to the marketplace. I got a chance to help a guy that's doing an amazing sports platform. I spoke to some guys doing something with cyber. Totally, I think I had like 7 calls I had fun. Some of it became friends, work connections. Why not try? So if you need anything, let me know. Ping me, leave a comment, then I'll answer it for everyone if it's relevant, if it's interesting. If you need any help with your marketing, sales, customer journey, messaging, and brand, I'm interested. Guys, have an epic time and go help someone. See you soon.