4 Ways to Politely Say, “No, I am not doing that for free”

In case you were wondering – yes, you have the right to and fully deserve to be paid for all your work plus any knowledge and expertise you have accumulated throughout your career. 

There is nothing wrong with people coming to you for advice or wanting to collaborate with you, but there is a fine line between a thoughtful question and expecting you to work for them at no cost or without a clear kickback. 

There is no difference between walking into a department store and asking if you can grab something off a shelf without paying for it and asking an artist, educator, or business coach to hand out freebies. Period. 

Here is a list of ways to kindly respond to those asking for freebies:

• Thanks so much for considering me! Please see here for a link to the consultations/services price packages that I offer. Let me know if you have any questions.

• This sounds like such a great opportunity. Thank you for thinking of me! Are you able to confirm that this is a paid opportunity?

• I appreciate you thinking of me for this opportunity. Unfortunately, I'm unable to take on any unpaid projects at the moment but I will circle back if that changes.

• This is a wonderful question and I appreciate you reaching out to me with this. I typically charge a flat hourly fee for these types of coaching questions, so I am unable to answer this via DMs, but I'll drop a link below where you can book a consultation with me. 

Let’s normalize being comfortable with saying no to inquiries like these without hesitation and charging full price for our work, our knowledge, and years of accumulated expertise!