When To Do Things For Free... And When Not To.

With the ever expanding world of social media, blogs, video and online journalism it's obvious that the "personal brand" is really important these days. It's important for your career and it's REALLY important if you want to be a freelancer, location independent worker, or if you want to open your own business because people find you online, so you'll need to have good content out there for visitors to determine if they want to know you, work with you, or meet you. We all agree on this.
I started my company and decided that I would do as much as I could to get my work out there and in front of people. This is probably where a lot of you are right now. So I wrote every guest post that anyone asked me to do, spoke at every event I was invited to, helped on every project, took every call. Let me tell you something though: This is going to make you really busy and stressed out.
I remember having a conversation with a more financially minded person several months ago and I was losing my mind because I was so busy. I wanted my company to be writing interesting articles about social media and I wanted to be doing lots of speeches so that people would know that we knew what we were talking about and want to work with us.
"That sounds like a lot of content to write." My financially minded friend said.
"It is. I can't think of something smart to say all the time. Sometimes I want to write about clothes and I feel like I can't." I told her.
"Well, you need to prioritize this better, which ones are paying you?"
"One of them." I answered and immediately realized how ridiculous it sounded.
"You have got to stop doing so many things for free." She told me.

She was right, I needed to stop doing so many things for free but I still needed to do enough to keep moving forward with my company's online presence. Here are my rules to help you decide what to do and what to turn down.

Do It For Free If:
It's for something that is well marketed on its own. Like a speech or a really large online publication. If the event has a marketing department of it's own and you will be included on the roster it's probably a good idea.
It's something that's exactly the topic you generally talk about. I will guest write about social media, entrepreneurship, work clothing, innovation and inspiration, being creative, and a few other topics. Writing and posting about the topics you want to explore further will introduce you to other like minded people and their audience will appreciate your view (or at least understand the topic). Anything outside of that isn't going to be worth your time.
It's something that's really fun. I have a few really time intensive projects that are currently making me zero dollars but are so much fun that the end is definitely worth the means. Having fun can be a reason to post on a friend's blog or participate in a speech for students, or create a video you just have to keep those in check or you won't make rent.
It could turn profitable at some point. Putting in the time for reward later is also a reason to do something for free. Don't take this as "I'll do every guest blog post I'm asked to do because someone might pay me for it some time." This is more that you should be willing to write content or posts to support your company's podcast series that someone might sponsor at a later date. The difference is, nebulous guest writing doesn't necessarily lead back to a success for you.

Don't Do It For Free If:
It's too small. You need to choose the guest posts, speeches, and videos that you do with care. Blogs and organizations that are the same size or smaller than you should be done in smaller doses. This sounds mean but I used to say yes to everything and I was exhausted from developing content for so many places. Make a rule like: I will do a guest post for a smaller blog or site twice a month. You can book for the next month then once you fill your quota.
It costs you money to help. A speech might seem like a good opportunity but if the organization isn't willing to pay for the flight, hotel, and expenses (as they sometimes aren't) then the speech will cost you money to give. If the speech is for 75 people and it's 7 states away you could end up paying $50 per person to give that speech when all is said and done.
It's ongoing. A friend just told me recently that she'd been writing once a week for a prominent web site for several months and was not being paid to do so. Beware of companies asking you to provide recurring services in exchange for "exposure". Unless of course you really are seeing huge returns on it. Generally, "exposure" just means "please write and work for free".