[mrtb]

I've been DM'ing randos on LinkedIn for lightweight consults and found that offering to pay up front and asking strangers to price their own time can help to show seriousness and often results in free interactions or buy-me-a-coffee pricing. e.g. "Hey I love your work on X, I've been thinking about / working on related thing Y and would love your feedback on aspect Z. How much $$ to rent your brain for 20 minutes? I'm mainly wondering what you think/know about specific questions A, B, and C." They can either reply with a price, suggest a time for a short call, or just answer directly

[mtlynch]

This is what Jason Cohen did when he was getting WPEngine off the ground. He messaged 40 WordPress consultants on LinkedIn and offered to pay them higher than their hourly rate since it was a one-off task.[0]

Out of 40 messages, 38 replied and agreed to a phone call, and none of them actually asked for the money.

[0] https://mtlynch.io/notes/designing-the-ideal-bootstrapped-bu...

[Tryk]

This works 100% of the time for cigarettes, ask if you can pay for one and they give you one for free.

[946789987649]

Note: This may not work on students

[pinter69]

Interesting, thanks

[simon_brender]

The Jason Cohen story gets read as "pay people and they'll talk to you," but the 38 out of 40 who declined the money tell you it was never about the money. What the offer really does is signal that you have costed their time before they have to, and that you are not planning to waste it.

I have run cold outbound to senior buyers for about twenty-five years, people who owe me nothing and get pitched daily.

Two things that I find move the reply rate more than anything else:

- First, a specific, bounded ask that names the twenty minutes and the exact question, so they can price the interaction in their head in one read. The article's "so short as to be unsummarizable" line is the same concept.

- Second, and this is the one people skip, evidence that you already know the answer to the easy version of your question, so the only thing left to ask them is the part that needs their judgement.

Offering to pay is a cruder version of both. It says the cost is real to you and you have thought about theirs.

The ones that land make the money almost incidental, the way Cohen's did. Make the ask cheap enough that saying yes costs them less than saying no.

Give them your answer to the easy version first, so the only thing left to ask is their judgement on the hard part. People will spend that on a problem they already feel daily, far sooner than they will do your thinking for you.

[lstodd]

Maybe that's linkedin people. There are others like me: there is no such thing as 20 minutes. If I take on something, it's at least 10 hours effective. So we would just flat out refuse any such offer while on the other hand you can get those hours free if the question is sufficiently interesting.

[Hnrobert42]

In that case, I appreciate your comment here! Not sure it was worth 10 hours, but it was good of you to share.

[lstodd]

:) Comments are billed separately at 0.

First question that I will have would be - why do you need the what are you asking for. Because you are relying on my expertise and I do expect myself to deliver the best possible answer. And then we go into 10h+ land.