You know when you get those messages of someone you kind of know, but kind of not really as well at the same time, you know someone who’s maybe lurked in your comments for a few months, or perhaps you met them once at a networking event.

And then you suddenly get this DM saying, hey girl, I’ve got this thing I’m working on and I’d love to pick your brains on it for a few minutes.

Fancy grabbing a coffee to chat it through? Or perhaps naturally the classic with me because I’m the curator of 10X shortage and I get hey, so how can I get myself onto a Ted X stage?

And then they put some like cheeky grin emoji to seem like they’re not really asking for anything nature.

Or maybe even the ones who don’t even care about the nice teas.

And then just drop into your DMS and say, I see you’re connected with so and so can you please make me an introduction as I’d love for them to be an investor in my company.

So honestly, like, I’m someone who loves to help out other people and that’s probably why I’m inundated with messages like this.

But I just want to highlight a major point here.

When you ask someone to just grab a coffee to chat through a project, if they’re not a good mate, then you’re basically asking for a free consultation.

Because ask yourself this question, would you drop Richard Branson that same message?

Or what about Stephen Bartlett to ask him for some investment advice casually?

Or even someone like Grace Beverly, would you slide into her DMS on Instagram and be like, hey babes, love what you’re doing with tell her I want to start my own leisure web brand.

And you know, I’d love to pick your brain.

Like if you’re cringing at the thought of that, then you should be because it is so cringe.

But my question is why is it OK to ask me to do that then?
Or anyone else like me.

And no, before you get all crazy, I’m not comparing myself to these business moguls, but I am saying that I’m good at what I do and that I’m a professional and you are coming to me for some reason.

So if you thought I was awful of what I do then you wouldn’t even ask me in the 1st place.

And I know so many people who feel that they are not appreciated at the moment and everyone seems to want something for free.

And after all, it’s not flattering when people constantly drop into your DMS asking for favours without anything in return.

It’s basically an exploitation of your generosity.

So I decided to do a personal interview today and it’s about me opening up about how I’ve been feeling lately.

It’s been pretty difficult to be honest. And that feeling of being used and abused.

And I know that so many entrepreneurs are in that weird place at the moment of wondering how much value they should be giving away just to win work.

And they’re realising now that so much of their time is giving away for free and it’s just not sustainable.

So if you’re suffering with us too, and this episode’s for you, I really open up about how I’ve been feeling about it all lately and how you can navigate the ultimately greedy world that’s out there and run your business profitably without saying no to absolutely everyone.

Hello and welcome to Sniffing Out the Bullshit, a podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs who want help wading their way through the bullshit jungle of entrepreneurship and then the tools, skills, and mindsets that are actually required for success. I’m your host, Sabrina Chevannes, the No Bullshit entrepreneur.

I should probably start with why I’ve decided to do an episode on this topic in the 1st place.

Well, I’ve been feeling a little exploited lately.
Let’s just say that now.

I’ve always had people drop into my DMS and ask for something.

This is never going to change, right?
There’ll always be people who’ll try and get things for free.

We’re in an economic crisis at the moment, for God’s sake. So it’s gone even worse. And you know, for those who Reggie follow my content, you’ll know that I’m constantly highlighting the bullshit around those who just show off about money and act like they’re smashing it, making others around them feel inadequate, like they’re doing something wrong.

And the reality is that lots of people are struggling right now, but they don’t want to admit it for obvious reasons.

So the desperation is at an all time high. And so it makes complete sense that I’ve lots of people asking for free help.

So it’s not just that I’m know that as someone with a fairly visible personal brand, I’m going to get a lot of unwanted messages.

That’s pretty standard. But the bit that’s been upsetting me of late is that the connections that I had that I thought were real are the ones doing it now.

Let me give you some context because I’ve been building knobs now, my entrepreneur members club, for just over a year.

And it’s supposed to be all about genuine connection. After all, knobs equals no bullshit, right?

And that’s why I’ve got this whole sniffing like the bullshit a podcast and the No Bullshit Talks podcast, the no bullshit agency.

It all comes from the no bullshit.
And the entire point is to philtre out the bullshit and find people who want to make genuine connections and not just be all about the selling.

And I’ve been very particular about who I invite to these events and whose applications I process.

For example, we’ve only taken in about 8% of the applications we’ve received.

The problem is, some people are very good at bullshitting, so much so that this bullshit detector right here can’t even deduce anything from them.

And so I’ve been running many events, like lots of them which are at are like dinners at fancy restaurants, I mean Michelin star restaurants where you have to pay ahead for guests.
So you pay a fair amount per person, you have service charges, all that kind of stuff added on.

So when the guests then don’t bother turning up or paying for their meals, it’s just kind of rude.

Not only is it a business expense that’s gone it, it’s bad on the restaurant who prepared food that goes to waste.

It’s bad on the other guests who are there prepared to turn up and they’re not even going to get the full experience.

It’s just all around not how you do business. So did you know what? I find it really hard because chasing people for money is so awkward.

And when people turn around and say to you, oh, I’ll pay soon, you, you just believe them, obviously.

But then when they ghost you and they don’t ever pay, it’s just horrible.

And it’s one thing not turning up and ghosting, you’re not paying.

But so many people have actually turned up eating the meal and still not paid.
And what what can I actually do about these situations? I mean, do I stand at the door with a point of sale and demand money before they come in?

Some people probably be like, yes, that’s exactly what you do.
But the problem is I also want to treat people with respect.
I want to provide a quality premium atmosphere.

And that sort of behaviour feels kind of transactional to me because it shouldn’t be about the money, it should be about the experience and the relationship.

So good quality people would never attend and not pay.
It usually can be easily sorted out afterwards.

And after all, if I’ve been doing my vetting properly, I shouldn’t be inviting people who do that kind of sort of thing, right?

So unfortunately it’s on me and unfortunately this has happened many times. So it’s my fault.

And the worst part maybe is that they are also doing business with other people they met at this dinner. Because I didn’t part my job properly.

I brought good people together, quality people who I thought would work well together, but it wasn’t Quality or Van because they have that attitude, which I don’t like.
And what Amayza did, how the person they’re doing business with, but they didn’t pay for the meal.

Of course I’m not going to do that. So it’s just really an awkward situation.
But at the end of the day, these people loved the idea of a free meal with good company and a Michelin star restaurant, but weren’t actually interested in putting any time and effort to getting to know others or contributing to a community.

And likewise, they were happy to come to an event in the Shard and meet some premium partners that we deal with and these amazing brands that offer them discounts off the things that they’re using and and give them great business advice. But they weren’t interested in paying for the luxury of having that regularly, as instead they preferred to hop around and do that with different providers for free everywhere they go.

Now I know, but the long run, these people won’t do well in business. Well, I’d like to hope that they won’t anyway. And you know, it’s hard to keep the faith at the moment when you’re keep seeing these dishonest people do well.

But business is all about long term relationships. And if you take, take, take, then people won’t won’t want to keep doing business with you, will they?

But at the same time, it just makes you feel a little bit crappy inside because you start to wonder whether what you’re doing is even worth doing. Because if people don’t want to pay for it, then is it just worthless?

And this is what was going through my head and it made me feel like, should I even bother in doing this anymore? Like, what’s the point?

But when I started to look at what else was happening, I had people in my network I got on so well with that I would meet them for coffees or drink. I started to see the same thing happening there. And this wasn’t even a service. This was just general interaction, general human behaviour.

When I meet people, like at my members club that I’m a member of and people come out to me, I would generally, generally like pay for the drinks because I feel like that’s the right thing to do. If they’re traveling to me, then I will pay for it.

So, you know, doing this regularly costs a lot of money too.
But I’m always able for honest conversations with a fellow founder just to see how I can help them and how we can love meet each other, right.

And, you know, I’m doing a doctor as well in entrepreneurship and I feel like all of these conversations should be beneficial to me too. So it isn’t just one sided.

I, I love to help people, but This is why I, I do it. And I’m happy to kind of, you know, work with people. And I like to believe that what goes around comes around, right?

So, you know, but the amount of times that I meet these people and you know, they’re in a nice club, we’ve paid for an expensive glass of wine and we’re chatting and I actually, I really get on with these people.

I’m like, great. I was like 30 minutes in the conversation.
I turned around and be like, Oh, actually it’s pretty you and tenant shortage, don’t you?

I totally forgot about that. Tell me more about it. And I’m like, did you forget about it?
Because it’s kind of in in my BIOS headline, LinkedIn, It’s all over the place and talk about it all the time. I don’t really think you forgot about it.
So Phil makes even better like instead of just being like you’ve entered at shortage.

Tell me like more about that. Like how can I get involved and blah, blah.
I just don’t like the pretend around them. It’s so obvious that that’s all they kind of wanted to talk about and they were kind of going to the niceties of the 30 minutes just to get to that point. And you know, it all becomes clear that there was an agenda for this meeting.

They wanted to do a Ted talk or in some cases they’ve actually wanted to run the event and they had no idea that it was a volunteer LED organization. And so they want to be hired to run the event and get paid for it. And they thought I got paid lots of money by Ted.

And so they wanted in on this. And so that was their way of kind of getting in. And they were like, oh, I think it’d be really good.
And they’d pitch.
And basically they’re asking for a job. It’s kind of crazy.

And so an hour of my time gets wasted on these people because they’re not actually interested in building a relationship at all.

Because I’d, I’d go with it and think, OK, maybe I don’t want to jump to a conclusion.

So I’m like, OK, so how can I help you?
And they’re like, oh, send me some information on how I could get a Ted talk and what I could do.
And the ones who are looking to be paid and I’m like, well, I can’t pay you.
It’s a volunteer LED organization.

They’re like, oh, and they don’t even try to do anything.
But some of the ones who you know, want to say they want to do a talk or want to help out some ways, they’d often sign off promising to introduce you to sponsors because I’d explain that the event just can’t go ahead without sponsors.

And so I’d say that I’ll, I’ll get you in touch with sponsors and everything. So when I follow up, I get in touch and I give them advice of how they can land a Ted talk and give them brochures and everything.

I’d actually never hear from them again. I tried to follow up and nothing.

So I realized now that I’ve probably been explaining this experience. So probably about 10 minutes and I’m actually already exhausted thinking about it and explaining this all to you and you’re about to be exhausted hearing you thinking Oh my God like this is just too much.

Now imagine how much time I genuinely waste each week on each of these interactions because I’m looking for people who want to make genuine relationships only to find they’re only interested in helping themselves.

It’s truly exhausting because in these moments you just don’t feel respected. Instead you feel like a commodity. So if you’re listening to this thinking, geez, just get over yourself, This is just how things are.

You’re probably right, this is how life is. And I probably should just say no to people more because that is the easiest thing to do.

But I’m also running a business and I believe that networking and building real relationships and stuff like that is exactly how you build a genuine business.

Plus every single one of these people I’m meeting is technically my target audience, whether it’s for N0BS and their potential members or for my factional CMO and strategy J work their potential clients. So I should be meeting these people.

But I guess the reason why this hurts and I feel exploited is because when people do this consistently, the underlying message becomes super clear to me.

It just feels like they’re saying I don’t actually value your expertise enough to pay for it.

I don’t see your time as precious as why I’m abusing it.
Well, I just see you as a shortcut to what I want.

And this nicety of having a coffee is just to get through it, to get to what I want. And to me that’s not respect, that’s being used.

So you have this dilemma when this happens, do you just say no to every random coffee request or meetings that you’re protecting your boundaries? Or do you say yes and realize that more often not, they’re just not interested in a real relationship and maybe actually you just try to sell to them instead and use it as a sales meeting for you?

But I think each of these options have their own issue, right? Because saying no means protecting your boundaries.

But you’re no longer networking and expanding your reach, so you’re going to speak to a lot of few of your target audience.

And then you’ll be learning less because after all, you should be learning something from every conversation you have.

But on the other hand, saying yes means exhausting your time because each coffee adds up and technically then you’re giving away hours of unpaid strategy.

But on the other hand, you’re meeting lots of new people and it only takes one of them to change your life.

So it’s not easy at all.

But we have to look at the bigger picture because this isn’t just my problem, it’s a way bigger cultural issue.

We built this whole culture around giving value. We’re constantly told give, give, give and the clients will come somehow.

If you share your knowledge, you build goodwill. Eventually people are going to buy.

But somewhere along the way that got twisted. Entrepreneurs are now giving away strategy, connections, introduction, even emotional labour and getting almost nothing back.

We’ve glamorized networking and what so many people call networking is really just extraction. It’s not how can we both benefit from this? It’s more like, what can I get out of you?

The most common thing I hear people say is what’s in it for me? And for me, this is not just business.

And just casting my back to all the social media DM that you get right. Because you’re visible on social media, people feel entitled, somewhat entitled, to your time, your energy, your contacts.

But The thing is, visibility does not equal availability.
Or at least it shouldn’t to me.

And there’s so much science to back up this behaviour, right? Psychologists call it the norm of reciprocity.

Humans are wired to repay favours. But the problem is in digital networking, that loop often gets broken.

People take, take, take and never feel the urge to give back because it’s so easy to do so.

And if you’ve not read the book influenced by Robert Cialdini, then I would definitely start here.

He wrote a very chunky piece of research on all this. And actually several influencers I see talk about this book and I really swear by it.

So if you kind of want to know how they’re getting into your heads, then you might want to take a read of this because this really delves into a lot of it.

And then on top of that, there’s also something called burnout. Research studies are showing that micro demands like these little endless small requests drain us just as much as big projects. It’s decision fatigue, emotional fatigue, and eventually resentment.

I know that every single time I see one of these DMS in my inbox, I get a little bit more pissed off. Like I really want to just say that like because I can tell or it’s like the amount of requests I get, it’s going, hey, I see you’ve entered A shortage.
Can we have a chat about how I can do a talk?

And I get it, that’s they need to do that and you’re going to be asked for things.
But when it’s non-stop all day and you feel like you’re not getting anyone valuing who you are, what you do in your skills, they’re just looking for something back.

It can get timing because contrast though is absolutely everything. Because when it is genuine and someone reaches out with respect, with value to offer back to you, it does feel good you want to give. It’s when it’s one sided that it feels abusive.

Which is why I’ve been so passionate about building knobs to rule out those one sided people and to build a place where genuine founders can help each other grow.

My question is, are there enough genuine people left in the world, or have they been overpowered by this wave of extraction instead?

It’s something that’s been really bothering me and that’s what can get you feeling down.
I know other people have felt the same way and reached out to me about it, but I have to also wonder if there’s a thin layer of sexism here.

I know people don’t like to hear this, but when I speak to my network about these issues, it’s usually the women who get asked to do things for the exposure, to give away their knowledge in ways that men often don’t.

And even women have told me that they’re more comfortable asking women for help than they are asking men.

And of course, a large part of that is because high men interact with women and they feel safe for asking women. But is there some underlying feeling that they also think that women are more likely to say yes?

Our own unconscious bias can still discriminate against our own kind sometimes. And so we have to think about whether that’s a factor. And I start to wonder all the time, why do people act like this now?
Some people genuinely just don’t realize they’re crossing a line.

They’ve been fed the idea that picking someone’s brain is how you build your network. Others, well, they know exactly what they’re doing. They’re opportunistic, they see you as a shortcut and they don’t care.

And the problem is visibility makes it works. When you’re active on LinkedIn, Instagram, podcasts, people feel like they know you.

And when they feel like they know you, they feel entitled to your time. So this is a natural thing when you’re building a personal brand.

And so this is the situation I’ve been dealing with lately.
And I really wanted to, you know, talk about this in one of my personal interludes because it’s been tough to deal with.
I know other people have told me they felt the same way.
I’ve had a lot of voice notes recently and people just feel fed up and.

I really want to build an incredible community for genuine founders who want to help each other.
I really want to find small business owners who want to, who want help growing their businesses and want to invest and pay a professional to help them do it.

And I really want to connect with other founders who are also wading their way through the bullshit of entrepreneurship and they perhaps want a hand sniffing it out and having each other’s backs.
These are the people that I want to have coffee with.

So when someone drops into my DMS who sounds like this, I’m excited to meet them.
Of course I am.
And at first, I said yes to everyone because that’s how you open doors, right?
I said yes to the coffee chats, yes to the introductions, and yes to the free advice.

Because I love helping people and I like to believe that what goes around comes around.
However, when you look back at your week and most of your hours are unpaid with no reciprocity at all, then you know you’re doing something wrong.

And I started to hate myself for it.
Like why am I pulling everyone else first all the time?
Surely I have to do what’s right for my business and my family?
And so I realize I absolutely had to change.

And The thing is, whenever I spoke to someone about this, they’d all say the same thing.
Respects your boundary is just say no.
Like I just constantly hear that.
It’s so easy to say this.
And that’s, that’s what all the advice I see everywhere say this in books, online and you know, coaches.

It’s the simple answer.
But I also think it’s a bit rude.
Yes, I know I need to be more selfish.
I’ve heard that a lot.
But it’s also just not me.
I do want to help people who genuinely want help because after all, if I need help and I reach out to someone, how would I want them to react?

So I believe there’s another way around it.
And now I do these three things and I hope that these three things might help you if you’re in a similar situation.
First thing I do is I block off a limited amount of time in my calendar every week for random coffees or zoom calls.

This is time that I have admitted to myself that I’m happy to not waste, but I’m happy to network in to do networking without any particular outcome.
So if I happen to speak to a user and abuser during this time and so be it.
But I should also be using these slots to get better at looking out for the warning signs.

Which brings me to #2 I now do more of a pre meeting chat.
I speak to them a bit more, find out what they want.
I specifically ask what would you like to get out of our chat?
That way I know their agenda right from the get go.

Now obviously not everyone’s going to be honest about what they want to have the chat, but then that tells me more about them.
Like if they then try to be transactional in a meeting, I feel like I know what sort of person they are, but if they bring something up specific that they want help with, then that comes to #3 I’ve been working really hard on developing ebooks, guides, scorecard, etcetera, for all the common questions I get.

Now if there’s a common concern and I will try to do a guide for it.
So therefore, if someone tells me and I’ll preemies in chat that they have something they want help with, instead of giving up an hour of my time to help with this, I can then send them the relevant ebook on this topic.

First I say that they should digest everything in this ebook and if they have any more questions and please send over those questions after reading the ebook.
And then if they want to book in a call after that, they can do.
And this way I can see they’re serious about improving themselves and if they’ve already taken the time to read the ebook.

And so far this has been working really well.
And don’t get me wrong, the odd person gets super offended and they send me some bitchy message like I thought you’d like to help people.
And they come up with some passive aggressive thing about why it’s rude.
What I’m saying.
No put to me that just then philtres out people again and who they really are.

So over the last few weeks, or as you know, I took time sometime after the summer, got married, at my honeymoon, I started to reflect on things and I wanted to think about how the rest of the year looked.
And I just learned a really valuable lesson from all this.

I realised that generosity is powerful and I will always still be generous because that’s just in my nature.
But generosity without respect is just exploitation.
And so if people really value you, they will invest in you, they’ll give back, they’ll respect your boundaries.

And if they don’t, well, you don’t actually owe them a thing.
And you’ll hear all the woo crew say things like protect your energy, protect your values, protect your boundaries and all that stuff.
I’m not that woo, but I totally believe in good time management.

I do believe in reciprocity.
It doesn’t have to be transactional, but just knowing that you have each other’s backs and you respect each other’s time, that’s all I need.
So at the end of the day, I realised that the only person who’s going to care about your business and the way it should be good about is you.

And after all, I’m running a business, not a charity.
I also need to pay my bills and live my life.
So if I keep giving away my time then I won’t be here much longer and I can’t really help anyone else.
So I actually do have to strip back and be more protective all the time so I can actually help more people.

And that’s what I realised.
I think that that’s why I interlude today really.
That’s that’s why I wanted to do this personal interlude.
It’s called Feeling used and abused.
And so this title may, may be a little bit more depressing than the episode actually is, because how I feel now is probably more reflective of, you know, me thinking about it, taking time out and working out a new system that works for me.

And I really wanted to make the time to do this podcast because of how I felt.
And I know that other people feel the same way because I’ve had the conversation with people.
And ironically, I, I, I took some time out of actually recording this podcast in general.

I haven’t done an episode for a long time because I didn’t really have much time because I was giving so much of it away, which is ridiculous.
But I’ve also realised now that in the 30 minutes or whatever this of course episode is out, I’ve reached so many more people than I ever could with a 1 to 1.
So I’m really making sure I have the time to do this every week and therefore I have to be more careful with my time.

But I’d also love to hear from all of you about your experience.
How do you handle the classic can I pick your brain requests?
Or when you’re feeling like you’re giving away too much value, please do drop me a message on social media.
I’m pretty easy to find, but my links are in the show notes below and I really hope my experience and learnings were useful to you.

And until next time, please keep sniffing out the bullshit.