Besides being kind of a nasty image, asking to pick someone’s brain (most of the time) is not very nice. Why? Unless you have an existing relationship where there has been some give and take, it is disrespectful to the other person’s knowledge and experience – especially if they make a living getting paid for that knowledge!

My latest on Business Unplugged is one of my snarkiest and best posts. If you are a consultant or other brain-renter, you need to read Please Don’t Ask to Pick My Brain.

I give you specific guidance around when you should give it away, when you should make them pay for it, and how to avoid the dreaded coffee date. I begin:

The working title of this post was “Be a Consulting Pro, Not a Consulting Ho.” I can argue that consulting might have come before what is generally considered to be the world’s oldest profession. And we are renting our bodies, too – our brains.

Yes, fellow brain-renters, people pay us for our knowledge and expertise. It’s an intangible, but often quite valuable. They pay us for the things we have learned over the years. They pay us so that they can save time, save money, save aggravation, etc.

You can read the rest of the post here.