“C’mon, I will give you the exposure you need.

And I will even give you the referrals that will change your life.

It’s not about today…

It’s the future.

You are writing a copy for me today and I am giving you recognition tomorrow. 

How does that sound?”

Boss, make I no lie give you…

It sounds like gibberish.

In fact, it sounds like you think I am stupid because if not…

Why would you tell me to use days and weeks to work on a project for you…

And all I will get is exposure.

Is that what we use as currency now in the market?

Come off this for crying out loud.

Assuming the exposure you mentioned is even guaranteed…

I would have been relaxed a bit.

But all na scam.

And you see , this is how people like ripping off newbies.

Might be a newbie copywriter or graphics designer or even anybody.

So these bring us to a lingering question I have seen people asked well enough…

And here it goes:

Should I work for FREE?

And in all entirety, this depends on a whole lot of circumstances. 

As you know, I am a copywriter and so I will use copywriting as an example.

You see, sometimes if you don’t work for free, you won’t get into some circle you ever wanted.

What do I mean?

In April, I pitched a guy with the energy of working for free.

He’s on top of his game, he has a copywriter that works for him… 

And instead of me saying I will do this for some amount of money.

I told him to just try out this sales copy and give me feedback.

And boom, baba fired or stopped using his copywriter. 

Now, he pays me handsomely and even refers people to me.

Referrals from him have earned me a little above 100k which is pretty good considering I started the work for free.

And also, I pitched to work for free with another top copywriter too in May.

He gave me some VA works to do.

I did that and boom, I became his first employee. 

On and on and on.

And that’s to show you that you can work for free in some circumstances like this one.

But on the flip side of the coin…

It’s also very dangerous because some people are just insincere. 

I worked with a guy in January (I haven’t even been seeing the guy online again)

That was when I started my copywriting a bit and I was desperately looking for money.

Sad.

And I pitched to him with the hope of retaining me since he was a big shot then.

He took my work for free and tested it.

Or rather, started using it to promote hell outta his offer. 

And while I can’t say if the copy brought in money or not.

What I know is that he was using it to promote his offer for like 3 months.

And damn, he never got back to me nor does he reply to chats and all.

I just locked up and instead of me to vow never to do free work.

I just shine my eyes better.

And when talking about a potential client requesting free work…

That’s a big turn off and he’s a crook.

Just get away from him.

To do free work for clients, it should be of two things.

1. You either approach them that you want to do it for free or

2. They wanted to pay you and you refused because you saw a huge potential with them

Simple as that.

Anything apart from those two, move away because you will end up being cheated.

And that being said,

I think I have been able to convince and not to confuse you that…

Working for free depends on various things.

Work for clients that you feel deserve it for free and walk away from the others.

Use the free incentives (work) to build a lifelong relationship. 

Simple as ABC.

To your success,

Dolapo Hamzat.