Yes, you can pick my brain (and no, I won't charge you)
Yes, you can pick my brain. No, I won't charge you. Lots of consultants get outraged at the thought of this. But it doesn't really bother me.
Conversations I have with people have a compounding effect. Some percentage - maybe 40% or so - turn into paid work eventually, either directly or through a referral. This is more than enough to justify the fairly trivial time investment of a Zoom call or a coffee.
Also, the value I can provide in a short conversation is pretty marginal. I haven't dug into their business, I don't have much context - so it's really finger-in-the-air, or general best practices advice that I'm giving. Former is just some reckons, latter can be found pretty much anywhere online with a bit of digging.
So I’m not giving that much away for free.
Finally, a huge part of my business development machine is writing - on Linkedin, here and and in my newsletter. Every time I have a conversation with someone, I get an idea I can write about later. An answer to their question, something like that.
So yes, you can pick my brain. No, I won't charge you. That's just how I run my business.