Should You Charge When Someone Wants to Pick Your Brain?

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• July 5, 2012
• By Alexis Grant
• 3 Comments

Ever get sick of people asking to “pick your brain?”

Or maybe you’re on the other side of the fence, asking if you can do the brain-picking?

Check out this article from CNNMoney about how an increasing number of in-demand conversationalists are charging for brain-pick sessions.

Here’s an excerpt:

Adrienne Graham, founder of EmpowerMe, a business-growth strategy company, grew so frustrated by the onslaught of lunch date requests that she wrote a book called, No You Can’t Pick My Brain, It Costs Too Much. Graham devised a few rules about if and when to share her expertise with others.

Graham will freely discuss why her knowledge is beneficial, what kinds of issues she thinks others are facing, but she stops short at actually telling people how they ought to go about solving their problems. “Anything that’s going to … help you with your bottom line or your profitability, that’s a consult for me,” she says. “That’s intellectual property that I give to my paying clients.” Graham charges clients $350 per hour for a strategy session.

So we’re wondering: Have you ever paid for a lunch date? Would you?

We’d also love to hear from Brazenites who’ve managed to charge when someone wanted to pick your brain. How’d you turn that freebie request into a money-maker?

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