NFF: Your Expertise Is a Product. Stop Giving It Away for Free.
There's a booking link for that.
THE SIGNAL When someone asks for your professional opinion to use in their commercial product, that is a paid consultation, regardless of what they call it.
THE NOISE The pitch lands as collaboration. A research report. A thought leadership opportunity. They want your pattern recognition, your credibility, your years of hard-won clinical judgment, and they will feature you as a “contributing industry voice.” No compensation. No commercial engagement. Just your name next to their work.
THE REFRAME The screenshots above are real, redacted, and not unusual. A product manager reaches out about a Health Tech Outlook 2026 report. They want 3-4 lines on how technology is shaping your area of expertise. When I sent back a paid booking link, the response came fast: “This is not an advisory engagement.” But that’s the tell. If my opinion had no commercial value, they wouldn’t be asking for it.
This is not about bad actors. Most of these outreaches are well-intentioned. The problem is structural. Physicians have been conditioned, by academic culture, by CME norms, by years of “educational” speaking invitations, to treat expertise as a gift to be given rather than a product to be priced. That conditioning serves everyone except the physician expert.
The clinicians who say yes to these features, who contribute a quote for a publication credit, are the ones making the next ask easier. They set the market price at zero. Every name in that report is a signal that the model works.
THE BUILD The 15-minute paid pitch exists because expertise has a market rate. Price it, book it, deliver real value. Anyone who won’t pay $100 for 15 minutes of your opinion wasn’t going to respect it at $0 either.
Book at NerdMDs.com (15-Minute Pitch) or directly at pitch.nerdmds.com. First 10 to use code 25OFF get 25% off at checkout. Notice what just happened — scarcity, specificity, a direct call to action. That is what your expertise deserves. Not a feature credit.
THIS WEEK’S NFF SCORE
🟢 Physicians pricing their own expertise like professionals
🟡 “Thought leadership” reports built on unpaid clinical perspectives
🔴 LinkedIn “collaboration opportunities” with no compensation line
This is brilliant, Adam. I'm a delighted customer of the newest Nerd-MD innovation. This is a great strategy for enabling value exchange across the full spectrum of innovation. Glad you've caught the vibe-coding bug and looking forward to what you'll build next!