Working for Friends, for Family, and for Free: How Not to Burn Out or Starve
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Ask for a controversial topic in the creative entrepreneur community, and I’ll always toss in “working for free.” Everyone has an opinion about it.
As I share in this free online business course and in Business 101, I’ve done work for friends, for family, and for free—and learned a lot of “Do’s and Don’ts” the hard way. While the journey is different for everyone, I hope that some of these stories will help you define your own Best Practices in time to avoid some heartache!
Working for Friends: Do
Always set expectations early and often. By this I mean: Create a contract, and even if you’re doing the work for free or in trade (more on that later), make sure you go over the contract together and both sign it.
Here’s why: I’ve made the mistake of skipping this step a couple of times, but I’ll use a recent example.
A peer of mine got herself a GoLive template using my affiliate link, with our mutual understanding that I would customize it for her. I’ve built plenty of Squarespace sites and love GoLive, so I assumed the process would be a breeze. Well, neither of us knew at the time that GoLive had recently updated their delivery process, or that my friend’s existing Squarespace subscription was on version 7.1, not 7.0—and the template we picked out for her was for 7.0.
While that might seem like Greek to you, the bottom line is that we hit a LOT of hiccups out of the gate… and I realized too late that since we never signed a contract, when the process started to drag out, there was nothing holding us accountable to stay in touch every day and keep the project moving forward—resolving problems, finding workarounds, and generally communicating in spite of our busy schedules.
While in my case it all worked out, there were a few days in there where I wondered if our personal and/or professional relationship would sustain permanent damage.
Have you ever not been in touch with a client as often as you need to be? Then you probably know how quickly guilt and confusion and sometimes even resentment can infect the process! Don’t let a friendship fall into harm’s way over a creative project. Create a contract, and stick to it.
Working for Friends: Don’t
Deviate from your normal process. It can be super tempting to either (a) go above and beyond for a friend, or (b) shortcut because “they’re my friend; they’ll understand.” Trust me: It’s best NOT to deviate from your normal process!
Here’s why: If you have a workflow, you created it to save yourself headaches. Even for someone you adore, deviating, especially when you have other work on your plate, is going to disrupt your natural rhythm, and as a consequence, create headaches!
I built a website for a friend before I was ever full-time at Alexis The Greek, and years later she wanted an update. I was only too happy to do it, not only because I knew she referred a lot of clients my way, but also because since I’d really learned how to use Squarespace effectively, there were so many things I knew I’d do differently on her site if I could! I figured now was my chance.
But for whatever reason—probably our familiarity with each other—I didn’t send her my “Your Site Designer Will Need” checklist when we started the redesign, nor did I send my “What to Expect” magazine, or a contract, or ever even walk her through my company process. As a result, our expectations for how the project would go were completely out of sync and the project took more than 5 times longer than it would have if I’d stuck to my usual, systematic approach! Don’t make the same mistake I did. Stick to your normal process!
Working for Family: Do
Offer a family discount. This is something I go through more in-depth in my classes Business 101 and How to Build a Subscription Photography Business, but if you’ve set your prices like a business owner and not just like someone who needs to recoup her expenses, you should be able to afford to offer a discount periodically—specifically, to friends and family.
Here’s why: When family approaches us for work, it’s often uncomfortable. Sometimes the family member may expect you to do the work for free, thinking the work will be easy or fun for you, or that if the shoe was on the other foot, they’d do the work for you for free. This makes the situation uncomfortable for you.
Other times, family won’t expect us to work for free, but they will secretly hope for a discount. They might ask for your help and quickly follow it up with, “I’ll pay you!” because they don’t want you to think they’re mooching… but they also don’t know how much it will cost them, so they’re in a really uncomfortable place themselves, hoping they’ll be able to afford you.
If you decide early on that when family approaches you for work, you can offer a 20%, 30%, or 40% discount, then you have something to say when a family member approaches you for your services: “Awesome! I have availability starting [date]. And since you’re family, the 30% Family Discount will apply!” or, “I’d love to! When do you hope to start? My regular rate for [service] is [$-amount], so with the 25% Family Discount you’d be looking at [$-total].”
This worked out well for me in a few instances, most recently when my sister-in-law wanted brand photos and a site design for her nutrition business!
Working for Family: Don’t
Assume you’re the right person for the job. It can be easy to assume that you’re a family member’s best option when it comes to the services you provide, but that’s not always going to be the case.
Here’s why: In every service-based and/or creative industry, there’s a wide range of styles, methodologies, and just general expectations. One size does not fit all, and if you’re not the “right” person for everyone already, you might not be right for a family member who needs services like yours.
Real-life story: An aunt and uncle of mine reached out to me, wanting to pay me hourly to make changes to the website for a business they took over. They come from a different geographic area from where I am, so what’s in fashion where they are is different from where I’m geographically located; they are from a different generation, so what they look for in a website is different than what I do; and they were looking for maintenance on a WordPress site with a variety of third-party plugins I wasn’t familiar with.
As much as I wanted to help them, I knew I wasn’t the right fit, so I encouraged them to either start over from scratch with their site or seek help from someone closer to their age who had a WordPress specialty.
Working for Free (or in Trade): Do
Take on work that will lead to more work—so long as you have time in your schedule. Before you fill in all the blanks in your imagination, wait! This gets a little dicey. Sometimes the person who wants you to do work for them for free will offer in trade to talk you up on their social channels, give you credit on their site, etcetera, and that’s not really what I mean in this case. As I’ll explain below, those kinds of trades often lead to disappointment.
What I actually mean by working for free or in trade is, if you know your Ideal Client really, really well, then you know what kind of work you should be doing, and publishing to your website, and posting on your social channels in order to attract more of that kind of work. Right? If you want to be a brand photographer who specializes in beer companies and night-life businesses, then you don’t want to be photographing Etsy makers’ quilts and Christmas ornaments all the time, because that’s never going to attract beer companies and night-life businesses to work with you.
But if you’re not getting enough of the kind of work you want to attract, you’ll have a hard time attracting any of it in the first place. So sometimes taking on some free or in-trade work to bolster your portfolio can actually be a good investment of your time.
Word to the wise, though: Don’t do this often. Only do work for free during seasons where you have less going on or when you want to take your business to a new level and need to lay the groundwork for it—i.e., you want to test out a new process, raise your prices, target a new demographic, etcetera. If you do it too often, you’ll cost your company money and/or burn yourself out.
So here’s part 2 of that advice:
Working for Free (or in Trade): Don’t
Go in with high expectations. This tip applies to trades.
Here’s why: Trades are tough. Usually if you agree to a trade, it’s because you want something the other person offers but for whatever reason, it feels out of reach unless you get it by trade. (Exceptions in another paragraph below.) In the early days of AG, I did several trades, including the following:
I agreed to build a website for 75% off when a local micro-influencer said she’d do several Instagram stories about working with me
I agreed to a trade for photos of myself when another local photographer wanted a web design
I agreed to shoot a designer handbag line in trade for handbags around Christmastime
I initiated a photo-swap with another photographer, proposing that we do a mutual #communityovercompetition social post
By some measure, I was let down by all of these trades. I gave my all in every trade, but always walked away with less than what I hoped for—by a lot.
What I took away in the end from those experiences was: Don’t do work in trade if you can’t think of it like working for free. If you wouldn’t do the work for free, then if the trade doesn’t meet your satisfaction, your relationship with the other party may always been tainted—or you could end up in a tight spot when you don’t have something you thought you were going to have by a time you need it (in other words, the thing the other party agreed to put up in the trade). Don’t hang your hat on receiving anything important through trade.
Here are some examples of trades I’ve agreed to that didn’t disappoint:
I received a pre-fall shipment of candles from Aud and El to keep once I photographed them. These weren’t essential to my business (so there was very little pressure for the trade to go well), they were easy to capture, and I enjoyed them all season long. NOTE: I agreed to the trade because I wanted to test some fall presets I was developing on both people and products. I don’t randomly agree to photo trades for products!
I received some handmade beanies from Meggles Knits before Christmas one year that I was allowed to keep or gift once I captured them. NOTE: Since it was holiday time and I knew some friends and family who would love the items (and I had a little time in my schedule), I was happy to capture them in trade. Plus the model I used was someone who needed some photos but was on a budget, so she got the photos she modeled for in trade, too—which helped her take on work that meant she could afford more photos later! Wins all around.
I received some food products from Ellude’s to enjoy once I photographed them. Not only did I get to enjoy the food, but I also got store credit for ordering later. NOTE: Again, these weren’t essential to my business. I wanted to add some more recent food photos to my portfolio that weren’t just photos I’d shot for fun, and I wanted to test out some presets I’d been working on. So I got something out of it, but there wasn’t anything major riding on the trade.
That concludes this installment of Working for Friends, for Family, and for Free! What tip was most helpful for you? Tell me in a comment below! And as always, if this article helped you in any way at all, be sure to pin it so you never lose it! I also love when you tag me on Instagram with what you’re enjoying here on the blog, and if you post it in a story, I’ll share! (Wink!) Talk soon!
HELLO! MY NAME IS ALEXIS.
Coffee lover, day dreamer, foodie, and creative. I believe in doing what you can with what you have where you are. I blog to help you do more with what you have. I hope you love it here!
