Most actors don't handle money well. They retain management firms to do that for them. I am willing to be a money manager for authors, experts, speakers. I am willing to be your Money Manager.

The first step: I will show you where in your income-expense budget you can find $500 to $1,000 extra dollars to afford my income generating advice to help you sell more of your own professional services. It will cost you $9.95. If I can't find an extra $500 in your budget I'll refund your $9.95 fee. That's my money-back guarantee.

Here's what you must do:
1. Fill in the income and expense form I will post. I am the only one who will see your financial information and I will share it with nobody else. Promise.
2. Be truthful. No padding of expenses and no minimizing of assets.
3. Invest the extra money I find for you in my services or products.

That's the deal. Deal or no deal?

I often (every day) hear from people who say they can't afford to pay for a book or a service. I never believe it, but I don't say so. Every year for the past few years I do something to offer a face-saving way to get my services at no or very little cost.

One year I held an essay contest - for about 3 months - that would award $1,000 of my services and books to the winner. Nobody entered. The next year I offered the same contest for $500 worth of books and services. Only four people entered. I picked a winner and couldn't get her to decide what she wanted. I suggested several books and eventually sent them to her. No thank you.

Ten months later she contacted me and asked me to give the rest of her prize to a friend of hers. I reminded her that the prize was not transferable and not to someone who hadn't entered the contest. She was very snippy.

Next I offered an auction on a year of column marketing to North American newspapers, normally $1500 to $2500 a month. I received and accepted only two bids. Both dropped out after 3 months.

Then in November 2007 I offered a Pay-Me-What-You-Can program that ended Dec. 31. The program was in effect for 45 days. Any takers? None. In early January people started approaching me again for services they claimed they had no money to pay for.

Too bad none of these people took advantage of any of the contests, auctions or low cost programs I offered for low-income clients. There won't be any more contests or discount programs. In fact I have raised many of my fees.

But the bottom line is: If you don't take advantage of the opportunities I make available to you, don't tell me you don't have a way to hire me. You can find the money - just as I have - and I even have publications that show you how I raised money when I needed it. Read them!

I used to teach corporate clients proper business etiquette. Perhaps I should write another tips booklet on *business civility. Why? Because I've noticed a lack of good manners in two situations. It makes me feel disrespected.

1. When I give a gift of a book or a services to someone who says they can't afford it, do I ever receive a thank you? Rarely. I guess they wanted something else instead. Where does this sense of entitlement come from? The thing about receiving abundance is to appreciate what you are given. I will more than likely stop giving gifts to anyone who can't be bothered to acknowledge the gift. How hard is it to send a reply with the words Thank You?

2. When I am busy - I work 18 hours a day, seven days a week - and someone asks what services I can offer them to help them, and they are too lazy to look at the services on my web site, I put together a custom set of options just for them. Often it takes up to an hour of my time to look up what is already in plain sight for them on the web site. Here's what's interesting: rarely do they acknowledge what I did for them, or what I offered. Either will I never hear anything from them, no acknowledgment, or they will ask for another "proposal" for a completely different service or they will ask the same question again weeks later because it was too much trouble to find the email I wrote them. This wastes my time and shows me they feel my time is not valuable. Yesterday I told one man I was not going to entertain any more of his requests because he hadn't bothered to reply to my previous proposals of services. His reply still didn't even acknowledge my request for a response whether yes or no; he turned the tables on me with a sentence designed to evoke my sympathy for him!

So... no more free gifts from me because the recipients of past gifts have no manners. And no more estimates. If a prospective client wants my services - you all do realize I retired from promoting individual experts on Dec. 31 after 30 years, right? - you can write ME a proposal of what you want and what you will pay me.

* I wrote a booklet on Bed & Breakfast Guest Etiquette. Available on this site.

Read this: New York Times article

This is what I've been saying all along, for years now, while all the "gurus" tell you to write for free. Maybe now you'll see I was right. (Told you so, told you so.)

I get these kinds of requests on a fairly frequent basis so I should not be taken by surprise when I receive them. But I am, and even if I mention to a potential client early in a conversation that I turn down requests such as the following... that person still makes an identical request.

The requests are in bold; my silent thoughts in parentheses. I'm nicer to people in person, but I'm allowed to be cranky in private.

1. If you'll market my humor column I'll give you 10% of whatever payment you can get me... but if you fail to sell my column then I'll know you aren't any good. (It couldn't possibly be that your column isn't marketable, could it? If it were any good, you'd be receiving payment already from the college newspaper which has published it for free for a year, wouldn't you?) I don't accept these offers.

2. So that I don't have to pay you a consulting fee would you find a mentor for me in my hometown that will do what you do, but for nothing? (Yeah, I'm going to embarrass myself by seeking out someone I don't know to ask them to work for free... not to mention work against my own best interests by encouraging you not to hire me.)

3. My business is on the same street as yours and I want to start a speaker agency like yours. Would you share with me your business plan for your speaker agency? (Sure, I'll hand over almost 18 years' experience earned by trial-and-error, deny myself the $2,500 I usually charge for writing business plans, and forego the $5,000 fee I charge for a 9 month speaker agent apprenticeship.... so you can compete with me for business.)

4. Could I pick your brain over a cup of coffee about how to market myself? (Tell you what... Throw in a lunch at a nice restaurant and $500 and I'll answer your marketing, promotion and money questions for 90 minutes. Consulting is my profession.)

5. Why do you have to charge for your advice, your writing and your books? You're so greedy. Why can't you just give people what they want for free out of the goodness of your heart? (I guess I'm like this because I didn't take a vow of poverty... and I can't convince my mortgage lender to let me live free of charge out of the goodness of his heart. Besides, the more money I make, the more I can tithe to my foundation which helps the Hidden Homeless. And the best thing I can do for the hidden homeless is not be one of them. Besides - do I need to keep saying it? - this is my profession.)


If you're a consultant who receives outrageous requests and you feel like sharing (venting), use my feedback form and send them along to me. I'll post them anonymously if you prefer and we can have a good laugh together.

I wrote this June 6, 2002

People may think I'm a heretic, a turncoat, a maverick, a renegade because I hold a philosophy which is the reverse of what most people follow.

For more than 25 years I've raised the profiles of specialists and experts, helping them multiply their number of "fans" and significantly increase their revenues. I teach crazy things: like don't pay for advertising (it's ineffective and expensive), get paid to write and speak and consult instead of give it away for free. See my 12 Contrarian Principles: www.AndreaReynolds.com/12princclass.html

For some reason I still can't fathom, I see experts - even the speakers I agreed to represent - pay for advertising instead of generate media and press exposure. (If they'd ask, I'd show them how to be newsworthy enough to become a delight to journalists.)

I see them write articles for free thinking they need to do it to promote their products instead of getting paid to write the article and still have an opportunity to promote themselves as authorities. Why are they leaving thousands of dollars on the table? Beats me.

Why do speakers agree to work for free when the organizations have the money to pay them? Don't these speakers realize they are teaching organizations to have less respect for them?

Here's a news flash folks...

You can't make money selling your advice if you give it all away for free! OK, maybe you can make a little bit of money. But you probably won't be able to support yourself if you work for free... unless you hold a full-time job somewhere else. But is that the kind of life you want?

Yesterday I talked with someone who said he wanted to give away all his advice for free on his web site for a year and then if people like it he will start charging a fee down the road. His thinking was that all the big guys (like eBay) do it. Three things he's not understanding:

1. He's teaching his market that his advice has no value. If he doesn't value it why would anyone else? Why pay for it if he has spent money and his full time work over a year telling me it's not worth paying for?

2. Those big guys don't make their money selling advice. They make money from advertisers and sponsors. As a specialist you sell your advice; you're not in the ad sales business.

3. Those big guys also had investors that put up millions so the owners could take home huge paychecks. Unless you have investors putting up millions for you to use and live on, I think working for free for a year is a good way to end up bankrupt, divorced, and in ill health.

I don't know... maybe it's easier for them to accept less than they deserve than to stand up and claim what they want and deserve. The only reason I can come up with is that they are timid.

I like people who are respectful, courteous, kind, and ethical, but that doesn't mean they also have to disrespect themselves. I want to work with people who have the courage to step away from the herd of sheep.

If you decide following everyone else (timidity) is easier for you, then this web site is not for you and you should leave now.

If you have the courage to do what the leading authorities do-- position yourself as a leader and generate an excellent income by selling your advice, then let's talk about how I can help you get there.

Just remember, I give my clients excellent value as they can afford it and as their incomes grow. But I don't work for free!

OK, tell me what you think.

My methods are not for anyone looking for instant wealth or a lazy way to generate an income. Effort is required. My philosophy runs contrary to Internet Marketing Methods which work for products, but not for professional advice. You will expend effort, but if this your life's passion you should find it to be fun, not work.

Be courageous enough to reverse your current thinking:

It won't happen by selling books alone.
It won't happen by working for someone else.
It won't happen if you're not willing to invest financially in your career.
It won't happen if you're not willing to take personal risks.
It won't happen if you hand over responsibility for your success to someone else.
It won't happen if your expertise doesn't help others move forward in their lives.
It won't happen if you work for free or turn down money.
It won't happen if you market a product rather than your advice and expertise.
It won't happen if you do what everyone else does.
It won't happen if you think small.
It won't happen if you put obstacles in your path.
It won't happen if you don't have a strategic, empire building plan.
It won't happen if you push away opportunities that lead to your success.
It won't happen if you aren't passionate about your expertise.


Here's my side of a conversation I had recently with an author, with a little editing to eliminate identifying references. Please eavesdrop.

Millionaire Thinking: There are very few authors who are really my target market, mainly because most only want to promote books, not earn an income by selling their advice and expertise. They mostly prefer to work for free to "push" books. My clients think the opposite: they would prefer to sell advice and make piles of money and let the books sell themselves, sometimes giving books away for free. This is millionaire thinking. It's a very UNpopular concept among publishers.

Contracts, not quotes: Quotes in the press are nice, but they don't pay the mortgage. The kind of campaigns I have offered are not to generate quotes, but to generate paying assignments and contracts (in other words, INCOME). When I talk about media exposure, it's to result in eventual contractual work, not freebies.

Campaigns: I have been conducting empire-building campaigns for myself and my clients for more than 30 years. It's time to upgrade my clientele and I have done that by substantially increasing my fees. Now I will conduct only one campaign per month per client. Don't say you can't afford to hire me; you can raise the funds. If I can do it, you can do it. You have many options (25 ways) including private investors; and you can keep your investment affordable. Tell me what you need and tell me your budget limit.