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As my business has grown it's been a tough lesson learning to turn down new opportunities but even more difficult to learn to turn down the people behind the opportunities.
I'm sure many of you can relate.
As you grow in experience in web development for example you'll notice many family and friends that NEED to have a website for this or that. The problem is most people want you to help them and give you nothing in return - or very little.
It's funny to this day I still have people come up to me and say something to the effect of them needing a website for this or that but don't have much money. To those people I smile and suggest talking to the people who are much nicer than I am and will take on these type of projects.
Part of business is learning what you need to turn down. Projects like this are essentially leaching off time that could be used to make profitable ventures.
Once I learned to turn things down, my productivity and revenues began to soar.
This also applies to affiliate marketing and internet marketing.
If you're anything like me, you'll have thought of 10+ new ways to make money online every month. Learning which to pursue and which to give up on is part of the business and what separates many people from success and failure. This can be especially hard if you've spent time and money on a project.
In my next couple posts I will be describing some of the more recent failures that I have had to cut in order to keep growing profitably.
I can’t help but think I inspired this post =P
Yup!
Just want to help you be as successful as possible! 
I haven’t had anyone ask me yet. I guess I don’t talk about what I do too much.
You eventually come to a point where you have to turn down projects for friends as a general good business decision. At first, it can be helpful to work on friend’s projects because you can use them as a sort of portfolio of your work, but eventually you have to make the transition to actually making money instead of pulling favors.
Yup great point! When first starting, friends are actually great places to start!
Turn down friends and family. That doesn’t sound nice. Maybe you could help them in your free time.
What is that? Free time? Haha
Hey Jon, I can totally relate. I politely tell them I have x numbers of hours to work in a week and in those hours I need to earn $xx or it takes time away from my family. Some people still believe the web is free and that could not be further from the truth.
Hahaha great point. Wikipedia is free, myspace and facebook are free… why cant your work be free too?!?!
Cant wait to see some past failures. We can learn from them.
Thanks – Also if anyone has past failures that wants to guest post them, I’d love to hear.
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to these upcoming posts too!
I usually refer those people to Weebly. It actually has tons of advantages: They get a website for free, plus they have to show some commitment to the project. Also, they somewhat appreciate the work that goes into a website, even though they don’t have to code it.
Nice tip! I’ll keep that in mind.
It was funny reading your post and have had that problem. As a web developer we get those requests and usually can get out of them
. However, for many we built sites, advised and ultimately gave them thousands in free work. I chalk it up to good Karma and will one day come back to all of us for helping! cheers
This happens to me all the time! And I thought about it… it isn’t worth the money or time, even though I’d really like to help people out.
I think a lot of people (especially ones that are new to the industry) don’t realize how much time actually goes into creating even a basic site.
They think that just because you are an expert or that you’ve been doing it for a long time, that it should be easy for you and take no time at all.
While that may be true to some extent, as you said, those kinds of projects “are essentially leaching off time that could be used to make profitable ventures. ”
Hopefully they will see where you were coming from later on in life when they have a bunch of projects going on and people are constantly hitting them up to do free work.
Until then, I leave you with the theme song for this post!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv9VKKXwVxU
At first, it can be helpful to work on friend’s projects because you can use them as a sort of portfolio of your work, but eventually you have to make the transition to actually making money instead of pulling favors.
While that may be true to some extent, as you said, those kinds of projects “are essentially leaching off time that could be used to make profitable ventures. ”e
Honestly Jonathan, you gotta do what is in your best interest. Just like those that ask you are looking for their best interests, its tough but it is what you have to do. In the end you will feel better for sure!
Till then,
Jean
I agree Jonathan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m game to help friends and family out but I need some sort of funding for it.
Not sure if this is considered a poor business ethic, but you could always offer up your services in exchange for placing a few affiliate banners around the website that could conjure some extra money for you.
At the very least AdSense could be your friend. However, many expect you to “market” the website too. That’s where they’re pushing the boundaries a bit. Great post none the less.
Failures and mistakes make us stronger ….
Indeed! Turn down friends and family. That doesn’t sound nice. Maybe you could help them in your free time.
[...] it’s best to say No. Jonathan Volk said it best in his post, “What a Jerk”. “Part of Business is learning what you need to turn down.” Taking on projects that you [...]