You know what really grinds my gears?!

[WRXtranceformed]

This is an actual email that a sales rep forwarded to me from a possible client (a well-known, large software company) he is working with, who wants to buy my group's stuff, responding to a statement of work we sent over. 

Hi (sales rep),

I spoke to our VP of (Big and Important Things), (Big and Important Man), and he's requesting that this data be a pilot, free of charge, and if this venture proves to be successful, (Big Important Business Group) and (Big Important Software Company) as a whole will consider sourcing data from you more frequently in the future.

Please let me know your thoughts and I will speak with our leadership ASAP.

Thank you and enjoy your weekend.

Sales rep wasn't sure how to respond, I told him that we respectfully decline.  Not a super strong negotiating tactic to ask us to do a huge project at no cost for the possibility of maybe doing business with us in the future.  

Really, your company had double digit billions of revenue last quarter and you can't break off a few thousand to pay a world-class team to do work for you?  Hrm alright 

Or, if your specific group is poor / underfunded, you could just say so instead of trying to coax pro bono work out of us