Someone had sent an email looking for guidance in the field I work in.
It was fairly vague. Pretty much asking can you help us with… everything?
Not out of the ordinary, if you’re looking for help with something you know nothing about.
I replied back trying to narrow down what they may want to do. Starting from the concept of large picture to small picture type examples. Trying to gauge what kind of time they might need from me to work on this project.
Anyone who freelances is familiar with this response that came next. It boiled down to:
We’re not really looking to hire somebody to do this. Can you just tell us everything about how to do it to get us started?
Followed with a bulleted list of everything they want to know more about.
Normal reaction would be something along the lines of, “I don’t come to where you work and knock the squeegee out of your hand!”
Or just ignore it and never respond.
This is work I get paid to do after all. Showing someone how still involves time and effort. That ain’t free.
Then as I was looking at the list of what they wanted to know again, dumbfounded. I realized something.
What I had here in this email was a product. Something where I could tell them what they want to know and still get paid for it. In this email was a list of things people ask me all the time, that I know the answers to.
It wasn’t an annoying email anymore. It was a table of contents for a book.
Don’t want to hire me or can’t afford it right now? That’s fine. Here’s a book that answers all your questions! And I don’t have to type the explanation to these questions again to the next person.
Instead of getting mad, I just tried to think of a way to fix a reoccurring problem.