Small business owners get asked for free donations all the time from non-profits, event-organizers, influencers, and even family and friends - but when (if ever) does it make sense to actually say YES? In this episode, we discuss how to approach requests for free stuff from a marketing perspective and get honest about how you can decide when to say yes, when to turn down a request or when you may want to entertain the request.
If you are a small business owner who is tired of being asked for freebies or want a better way to properly evaluate these potential marketing opportunities, this conversation is for you!
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Chapters:
00:00 Why free requests can wear small business owners down
04:14 Marketing Hot Take
04:33 Why friends shouldnโt expect free products
07:31 Set boundaries and treat donations like marketing
09:11 How to say no without burning bridges
13:40 If you say yes, set clear expectations
22:22 Ask for analytics and track the return
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Chelsea (00:17.95) Hey everyone, welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast, where we celebrate the SOB that you are and if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small-owned business. We don't mean SOB.
Vivian (00:29) Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea (00:48) Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work.
Vivian (00:59) And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
Chelsea (01:03) Vivian, I want you to be honest with me.
Vivian (01:06.26) Oh no, is this a polygraph test? Do you have me connected to..
Chelsea (01:10) Oh my God, I would love to have like a lie detector test.
Vivian (01:14.71) I don't even want to know what questions you'd be asking them.
Chelsea (01:17) Would you kill for me, yes or no?
Vivian (01:20.71) And my response is take two.
Chelsea (01:24) For legal reasons, her response is no. That's right. Okay. Not the question I'm asking today. Today I'm asking you, how often do you ask businesses for free stuff?
Vivian (01:37) personally and this is honestly never. I yeah. I just unless there's gonna be some benefit to them, which I know everyone if you're probably like, this is what everybody says though, like, you know, you give free exposure, I do value people's time and effort and also, you know, their product and service. asking them for something free means that I'm taking away from their livelihood.
I'm very so unless it's something very, very you know, good good opportunity, I would I'm very selective about it.
Chelsea (02:09) Good. I love that answer because today, Vivian, we are talking about what to do when people ask for free stuff. Yes. As a small business owner.
Vivian (02:20) And we all know that as small business owners, you probably get approached a lot for this, okay? Whether it's your local schools, perhaps it's local events, people
Chelsea (02:36) Influencers family and friends.
Vivian (02:39) They might be sliding in your Instagram inbox. People are always asking you for free stuff, right? Can you donate X, Y, and Z? Yeah. And so the discussion that we're gonna have is specifically related to yea- your response
Chelsea (02:54) What do you do? Like, what's your response? What do you do? How do you decide? Yeah.
Vivian (02:59) That's right.
Chelsea (03:01) Before we get into that conversation, Vivian, I do want to say, for all of you listeners on Apple Podcasts, we were looking at our analytics the other day, and four like forty-five percent of you guys are not following. What's up with that?
Vivian (03:18) oh, y'all don't make her get her leather goods out, please.
Chelsea (03:22) Wait a second. take two again? No. What?
Vivian (03:28) Yes. you know, part of the reason that you should want to subscribe or follow us if you're not already, but if you're listening to our episodes is you get a notification and we want you guys to, you know, listen to us as soon as these episodes come out every Thursday. We try to cover really good topics, topics that you don't hear perhaps on other marketing podcasts.
we try to stay away from some of the overused terminology strategy, strategy, strategy. Okay. We wanna have these real life conversations, stuff that you can apply in real life.
Chelsea (04:06) Absolutely. So make sure you go ahead and follow or subscribe wherever you're listening. And Vivian, can I go ahead and do the pew pew marketing hot take?
Vivian (04:16) As long as you do the pew pew pew.
Chelsea (04:19) I just did it. Okay. Do I have to do it again?
Vivian (04:22) No, it's fine.
Chelsea (04:23) Okay, thank you. So my marketing hot take, and I think small business owners will agree and uncool people will disagree.
Vivian (04:34) Ha ha ha.
Chelsea (04:36) But I think it's really tacky when family and friends ask business owners for free stuff.
Vivian (04:45) Yeah, I'm not I will agree with you on that. Okay.
Chelsea (04:51) Well here's my thing. If you're a friend and you want to support your friend in their small business adventures? Yes. Endeavors is the word I was looking for. If you want to support your friend in their business ad I already forgot the word Endeavors. Yes. If you want to support them, then you you won't be asking for th free stuff. You're gonna make a purchase or
If you don't have the money to make a purchase, you can still support someone by sharing their content or letting people know they're an option, speaking their gospel, stuff like that. You can be a good friend and support a small business. You don't have to spend money, but it's not support when you ask for free things.
Vivian (05:41) I mentioned this earlier and I'm gonna stand behind it. I think when you reframe it in your head and you actually think about what you're really asking somebody to do, which is I want you to incur the cost of creating this product or of offering the service, but I don't want to compensate you for it. Okay. I want you to incur that cost and be at a deficit on my account. Yeah. Okay. If you're now listening
If it was Chelsea here all day long, you wanna know why? Because she owes me, okay? She owes me with her life. I've been, you know, with this chick since I was fifteen and she was zero years old, okay? So we she's forever indebted to her big sister and therefore she could be in a big deficit and it doesn't bother me. Now
Chelsea (06:29) Sure.
Vivian (06:30) Now would I do that to a friend of mine? No. I think that's the thing where you just have to be respectful and think of it that way. If you still at the end of the day can live with that concept and with that thought, knowing that somebody has come out of pocket for things and you're asking them for something free, if that sits okay with you with the relationship you have with that person, then move forward.
keep asking them for stuff. But I I would just tread lightly in that area. Yes. So I do agree with your hot take.
Chelsea (07:02) Thank you and I I want to discuss this because I also want to discuss something else up front which is you are the business owner you make the decisions if you want to give someone a free product or a free service that's up to you we're not here to tell you no don't do that or anything like that. We're here to have the conversation of if you're feeling uncomfortable, if you don't know what you want to do, we're gonna give you ideas and ways to think through the process so you can decide and make educated decisions.
Vivian (07:38) I think also being selective as a small business owner it's gonna help you, right? Having these boundaries or having in your mind if someone approaches me and it meets this criteria, then I'm comfortable and confident doing it because I know in some way it's impacting my business in a positive way.
Having all this outlined in your head now, and if you want, you could put it on paper. You know, just having that internal checklist for yourself, I think it helps tremendously because then you're not feeling like you're wavering. Maybe you did it for this person or this organization, but you didn't do it for the other one, and then you're kind of feeling bad about it, and you're like, Did I make the right decision? Just a lot of conflicting stuff going on internally. So we want you to just feel.
Confident about the decisions that you're making, especially when it comes to your marketing. And this does play into that marketing discussion.
Chelsea (08:38) oh, this is absolutely marketing.
Vivian (08:40) Yes, because one of the things I want to remind you guys of is if you are donating services or goods or products.
You can actually get from organizations if they're a 501c3, you should be asking for some type of receipt or documentation. So then you could submit to your accountant at the end of the year, right? Because you want to get credit, quote unquote, for the stuff that you're doing. Exactly. We want you to approach it just like you would any other marketing campaign. Yes.
Chelsea (09:12) Yes, so we're gonna talk about thought processes. So let's start this conversation, Vivian, with the simple question. Do you want to give them free stuff? If your answer is straight up no, then don't do it. Yeah. There you go. If you're like, I don't feel comfortable with this, I don't want to do this, don't talk yourself into it. Your gut is already telling you your answer, which is no. Some ways that you can say no.
I'm currently unable to take on any influencers or partnerships.
Vivian (09:43) There you go.
Chelsea (09:44) You could say, no, fuck off.
Vivian (09:47) I mean that's if Chelsea can you do that one more time so that they can actually keep a recording a sound bite on their phone in case they wanna tell people but they don't wanna say it?
Chelsea (9:59) Absolutely. You asked the question, let's really perform this.
Vivian (10:01) Okay. Hi, I'm with so and so organization and I was wondering, would you mind giving us some free X, Y, and Z?
Chelsea (10:11) Hmm, No, fuck off.
Vivian (10:13) Okay, that's your clip right there, you guys.
Chelsea (10:17) Okay, or I will reach out to you when I have something that I want to gift you.
Vivian (10:22) Yes, all of these are acceptable ways.
Chelsea (10:26) Yes,because here's the thing. You don't owe anyone an explanation. Mm-mm. I would say you don't owe them a response either, but just know that you might be burning some bridges. So if this is like an organization or an influencer that you want to reach out later, maybe don't ignore them. Yeah. Like don't ghost them, but give them one of these answers. Like I'm currently unable to or something like that.
Vivian (10:50) Yea, And it might be a good idea too for you guys to have I use a notes app in my phone quite a bit, okay. And just so that I can easily go in, copy and paste stuff, right? It might not be a bad idea for you guys to actually have something typed up. That's a no response, okay? It could say something like, Thank you so much for your inquiry. I did receive this message. However, at this time, you know, like Chelsea said, I'm unable. Yep.
Please keep me in mind for future, you know, opportunities. Yes. That's if you want to keep that open ended. And I do think that sometimes it's nice for people to know that you're in receipt of something. So I do like confirming that. The other thing is if, perhaps you do want to keep the door open and you really just aren't available or able to do that right now, but in the future you do want to work with them, like Chelsea had mentioned.
Then you may also just want to say, do you mind providing me with an email address or some contact information in case in the future when and if you're able to you have that available.
Chelsea (11:58) Vivian, before we keep going with this conversation, I do want to pause for a second and remind everyone that the type of people that are reaching out to you when asking for free things can be it's it's a variety, right? Sure. So yes, family and friends. I mean, you would hope they wouldn't, but they could possibly be asking you for free products. Influencers. They could reach out about a partnership or something like that and also organizations. So like charities, nonprofits, maybe, I don't know, any other type of organization could reach out to you.
Vivian (12:36) Yeah, local teams. I mean well, I'm thinking for example, if I were a print shop and I did apparel, so like t shirts and stuff, I could have some local teams that reach out or fundraisers that reach out and say hey, do you mind donating the t shirts for us? Right. And so then that's when you have to walk through this process that we're about to go through and decide is that a good opportunity for me? But I'm glad we discussed the no's. There are very polite ways and impolite ways, as Chelsea pointed out, to say no to people. I would always prefer that you do the polite thing just because you don't want to burn those bridges and you do want to be approached for good opportunities.
Chelsea (13:20) Yes. Now if someone reaches out to you and it's a real sketch opportunity and they're sketchy, then go ahead and just
Vivian (13:27) And if they're being rude about stuff, then obviously match their rude
Chelsea (13:31) Yes, there are times when being rude's okay. Okay.
Vivian (13:35) That's right.
Chelsea (13:36) So, let's revisit the question. Do you want to give them free stuff? If the answer is yes, perfect. You don't talk yourself out of it. You feel good about it, you wanna do it, go ahead and do it. No talking points needed here in my opinion, if you're feeling good.
Vivian (13:52) Yeah, I think what I would recommend is to get in writing exactly what it is that you're exchanging. Okay. So you're giving a product, you're giving a gift certificate for a particular service. What are you supplying them with? And what in return are you receiving? Are you receiving some free advertising on their flyers. Yeah. Are you receiving your logo on the back of their t-shirt because you're donating food for the event? Right. I would just say you want to get it in writing. It doesn't have to be a formal contract, but if you're doing this through any type of messenger, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, TikTok, put it in writing, lay it out, just say, Hey, can we recap? This is what I'm willing to donate. If you are willing to provide X, Y, and Z for me in return.
Chelsea (14:43) Great point.
Vivian (14:44) Yes. And be sure that you don't just do a blanket, yes, I'll provide free food. You want to spell out exactly I will provide free food for 50 people on this day at this time, at this location, right? Or you guys need to pick it up, but it'll be available to you at this date and time.
Have those details in there so that it doesn't get hairy later on.
Chelsea (15:10) Yea,'cause it can some we can. Yeah, okay. So do you want to give them free stuff? This is where we get into the nitty gritty. I'm not sure. Okay. If you're not sure, then these are the steps that we want you to take. You see the value in a possible partnership or whatever they're reaching out to you for, but you know, is it is it worth it? 'Cause you will be losing out, you will be incurring that cost.
when you give away a product or a service or multiple products or services. So, Vivian, where do we start with this?
Vivian (15:49) We want you to think about reach, okay? Impact it's gonna have. So are you able to either well, let me back up and let me let me say this. Let me Okay. Okay. When you're first kind of going through this, I think you have to decide what you want your motive to be behind giving the donation. All right. If your motive is
You know, I have set a goal for myself as a small business owner that I want to actually be involved in my community. And the way that I can do that is by donating free services. And every year my goal is to donate to this many organizations or to donate this much. And in return, I get a tax write-off. Okay, that's a very different goal than I want more exposure. Right. Which exposure, you always want exposure and you do good by donating stuff in that way, you just naturally kinda get it. But if it's a don donation because you want impact, very different than like a donation where you want like more reach. Yeah. Does that make sense?
Chelsea (16:55) Yeah, impact versus reach. It's remember we're talking about this like they like it is a marketing initiative. That's right. So you need to think about what your marketing goals are.
Vivian (17:07) Right. what would then be the next step if once I kind of define the goal and understand what it is that I the reason I'm donating?
Chelsea (17:16) Yes, okay. So now we're gonna think about it and we're going to not necessarily do research, but Yeah, do research. We're we're doing research. This influencer, this nonprofit, whoever's reaching out to you, what kind of audience do they have? Are are you gonna get enough eyeballs for this incurred cost to be worth it?
Vivian (17:38) There's a little nuance here too, because the way you just said that reminded me of something. when you say what type of audience do they have, also even if your product aligns with the particular influencer or the type of influencer they are. So let's say I I don't know, maybe I have a clothing line and it's very specific to like athletic wear and a influencer reaches out to me and they're a fitness influencer. Perfect you would think this aligns, but what if their following and their audience is, I don't know, unhinged or maybe it's not the type of customers you want. Okay.
Chelsea (18:21) Yes, So this was actually later in this conversation, but let's talk about this now. So we're talking about target audience, the amount of target audience they have. So how large is it? One. Two, does it align with your target audience? Three, yes. Does their brand align with you? That's what you're saying right now. Like are they are they aligned with your business in a way that you feel comfortable actually putting?
partnering with them, one. Or two, will the target audience reasonably actually purchase from you? Make a purchase from you? Because just because they are, like you said, they're following a fitness influencer, that doesn't mean that they're out here buying athletic wear.
Vivian (19:10) That's right. And also I think it's just the way people approach business. We're not talking specifically about collaborations or partnerships. What we are talking about is like donation, right? Donation of time or services or product Chelsea (19:26) Yeah, I I mean I kind of was talking about partnerships too. If someone reaches out to you if someone reaches out to you and they say, I want free stuff from you, you can turn that into a partnership.
Vivian (19:39) No, You can and it it is a type of partnership. But I guess what I'm saying is they're not exchanging money for your services and stuff. And so it kind of is like in lieu, it's a type of donation because you're donating either your time, your product or your service or some form of that. The the thing I wanna say about that is
Just like you would in any other marketing initiative, you just want to be very certain that it is something that you would be proud of and something that you want to align with because whenever you go about doing that, people do, especially in 2026. We all know cancel culture, we all know all that stuff. And I'm not telling you to be fearful of that. What I'm saying is just understand that by by
donating your product or service to any type of organization or business or event, it is in turn saying something about you and your business.
Chelsea (20:40) Yeah. I was gonna try to give an example with something with puppy kickers, but that's just too dark for me. So I can't
Vivian (20:47) Puppy Kickers? people that kick puppies?
Chelsea (20:49) Yeah, but then I was like there cannot be an audience for kicking puppies.
Vivian (20:53) I mean a very deranged, hopefully all locked up in jail audience.
Chelsea (20:59) Absolutely, yeah. So I couldn't I couldn't think of an example, y'all. Because then I just got sad. I just got sad about puppies.
Vivian (21:08) You guys, she's saying this right off of the heels of my my doggie passed away on Sunday. My dog passed away a week ago. And she's sitting here talking about kicking puppies. Let's let's not. We're pouring one out from my Zeusy Goosey boy. Sweet boy.
Chelsea (21:27) We didn't do the tequila shots. We'll have to do it after soon.
Vivian (21:30) Yeah, it is like eleven o'clock, so
Chelsea (21:33) Yeah, i know, but when my childhood dogs died, we did tequila shots.
Vivian (21:38) That's right. We went to Mexican afterwards and did tequila shots as a family. As a family. Normal you know, nothing to see here, you guys. Just normal grief. Grief behavior.
Chelsea (21:51) Grief behavior in tequila's shots. Let's move on.
Vivian (21:55) This episode of the SOB Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the SOB community. If you're a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted money and time on marketing help that didn't deliver, or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/SOB to sign up today.
To get instant access and weekly support, that's skool.com/SOB.
Chelsea (22:30) Vivian, this next section in my mind I wrote this thinking that a micro influencer reaches out to your small business. They're asking for free products. They're saying that they'll promote it on their Instagram or whatever. And you're feeling kind of iffy about whether it's gonna be worth it or not, ask for their analytics.
Vivian (22:55) Oh yes. Okay. Yeah. No, that that's a great that's a great viewpoint because I think so many of us maybe when someone reaches out we're I don't know, maybe flattered, honored, you're like, they thought of me. Yeah. But it's one hundred percent and so you might not feel confident enough to not push back but to come back and say like
Hey, I'm thinking that this might align with what I wanna do. I wanna entertain this. Would you mind providing me with you know, X, Y, and Z? And you could give some metrics specifically that you want to look at.
Chelsea (23:33) Most of it most if not all of these social media platforms allow creators to download their analytics so that they can share it. If you have somehow greatly offended them by asking such a thing, that's a red flag to me. Yes. That that it it should not be a big deal that you're asking for their analytics.
Vivian (23:56) Well, especially when they're asking you for free stuff.
Chelsea (23:59) Yeah, exactly.
Vivian (24:00) Like I'm sorry if you're if you are expecting me to donate two thousand dollars worth of free product, then I think it's okay for me to ask you for absolutely you know, just a couple different things. And same goes for you brought up that you were specifically in this scenario thinking about like an influencer. Even for a nonprofit, if they approach you about
Helping them with some aspect of like an upcoming event, I had used food as an an example or providing free t shirts, right? With print on them. Or even if they're asking for I want to say maybe materials and like goodie bags and stuff, it's okay to ask them for more information. We don't want you guys to feel weird about that. They should if they're reaching out.
Mm-hmm. And they actually want free stuff, then they should be comfortable answering a couple of questions for you.
Chelsea (24:56) Absolutely. And my last bullet point, Vivian, you've already kind of talked about already, but it's creating clear expectations. Yes. Having it in writing. Like again with the influencer, which I think can I just say my Gen Z brain. Because when I was writing these notes, the thing that I was thinking of the most was influencers reaching out. But I think that's also like a
a more I don't want to say popular, but it's becoming prevalent. Prevalent. Thank you. That's a great word. It's becoming more prevalent. Small businesses are have all these influencers and their DMs asking for free products.
Vivian (25:39) Yeah, and see I it's funny because this is our age showing here, okay. So then I am sitting here thinking at forty something years old, when you ask for free stuff, what I think about is having a retail store or having a local business where people from the community literally walk in or send you an email and they say, Hey, would you be willing to donate X, Y, and Z? Right. And it's usually for an event or some type of like
fundraiser that they're doing.
Chelsea (26:10) The example I think of, y'all, you know I love Bob's burgers. there's an episode where Linda the mom is trying to join the PTA board. Uh-huh. And so she's going with the PTA like head person to different businesses saying, You wanna give us free stuff for this fundraiser? Yeah.
Vivian (26:30) if you feel fatigued by this as a small business owner, rightfully so, because now you're getting it, as Chelsea said, from the angle of people reaching out on social media. Yeah. And you're also getting it from the angle of people walking through your storefront, maybe, or people calling up your business and acting like it's you know, it should be nothing off your back to just go ahead and give us like, you know, X, Y, and Z.
We love being a part of the community. And as I said, either you're looking for reach or you're looking for impact. You do get a lot out of these donations and partnerships with the influencers. Yeah. We're not going to to say you don't. Yes. You absolutely do. What we don't want you to do is at the end of 2026 look back and be like
Holy crap, I gave out a lot of free stuff and what did I get in return for it? Okay. We want you to say, holy crap, I gave away a lot of free stuff and I know exactly what I got in return for it.
Chelsea (27:35) And that's where expectations come back in. So you're very clear. I will send you a hundred dollars worth of my apparel if you create three Instagram reels about everything you got and give me like an actual review of what you thought. Or something like that.
Vivian (27:52) I think there are ways, just like we tell you to be creative in different aspects as far as like tracking how well something does. This can also work for this type of situation. Absolutely. Whereas like let's say someone reaches out and they're like, Hey, we're having a fun run at an elementary school. You're a pediatrician, you're like, Great, that I would love to get in those fun rung bags, right? So let me go ahead and get promo items, whether it's water bottles, whatever.
you put them in there, but you could also find a way to put some type of flyer in the actual water bottle that the parents will see when they pull it out and maybe it has a QR code on there, right? Yeah,
Chelsea (28:34) Great minds think alike.
Vivian (28:35) yea and and so there are different ways that you could go about just seeing what kind of return on investment you get for it. And the other thing that we haven't mentioned is these donating or offering your stuff for free.
could be a great precursor to bigger opportunities for partnership. Same fun run as an example, perhaps if those water bottles do really well, if I get one or two, well, let's say five appointments out of that, out of me donating that free stuff, then maybe next year for the fun run, I'm like, yeah, actually I don't want to donate stuff in the goodie bags. I would love to sponsor it.
I want my name to be the title of this event and therefore I'm willing to give you twenty five hundred dollars because I know in return I'm at least gonna recoup the cost in new patients. There are you know, this could be a really great introduction to a future partnership.
Chelsea (29:35) I that is such a great example, Vivian. I love that. I want to go back for a second on how you track this. Just a reminder that when you're tracking things, you have to create like a unique code. Like a unique QR code or a unique landing page. Like it needs to be different from your other marketing initiatives so that you can track and say, no, this is definitely from this specific initiative.
Vivian (30:04) It could or I will say sometimes it doesn't have to be unique. What it does have to do is you have to know when the that's why information's important. Details are you have to know when it was given out so that you could correlate the numbers from that particular day to the thing, right? That's fair. Yeah. So yeah. If you see a bump at, you know, starting at noon on a particular Saturday, then you know it's because of this fun run thing, right?
Chelsea (30:31) That's valid. Okay.
Vivian (30:33) yeah.
Chelsea (30:34) Fine.
Vivian (30:35) So different ways to do it, but the key points here, Chelsea, if we wanted to just wrap it up very quickly, we hope that we provided you some guidance with whether you want to say yes,
Chelsea (30:47) No. No.
Vivian (30:48) maybe, and then walk you through the process of what how to kind of look at it. That's right. Yeah. And then tracking. We want you to track stuff just as important.
And also, you know, get as creative as possible. Also know if someone approaches you about something and you like the idea but you think you could actually do better, don't feel weird about asking for one, don't feel weird about asking them for analytics or more information. And also don't feel feel weird about giving them a new idea and just saying, Absolutely, Hey, instead of donating food, I would rather you guys actually have the event here at my venue. So you can you know what I'm saying? So be creative in that sense. I
Chelsea (31:29) another great example from Vivian. It's almost like this is her career.
Vivian (31:34) I mean, it's almost like it's my J-O-B. All right, Chelsea. Friendly reminder to everyone listening out there. We want you guys to A, go watch us on the YouTube, the tubes of the YouTubes.
Chelsea (31:46) No.
Vivian (31:47) No? Okay, she says no. go watch us on YouTube if you haven't already. You can subscribe there or just subscribe wherever you're listening to us. And if you have a small business owner in your life that you love and you want to see them succeed,
Share this podcast with them so that way they can hear about all the things that we rant and rave about.
Chelsea (32:10) Yes. Okay, well Vivian, I want everyone to go out there and be the best SOBs they can be.