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The Power of Free To put a new twist on an old song, what have you done for free lately?In a down economy, some businesses are prospecting for clients by doing a few free jobs, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. The story quotes one Boston firm, Studio G Architects, that took on some pro bono design work for nonprofits to keep staff busy after business dropped. The result: more than $100,000 in paying contracts from the charities, after the projects Studio G designed won funding. What a win. There's a tendency when business is down to just sit around quietly moping. Or to panic and lay everybody off. But instead, consider the potential upside of keeping your team together and your company's name out there with some free products or services. Free stuff can be a powerful draw to bring you good paying clients down the line. In the tech world, giving away services for free has proved a popular way to suck customers in, get them excited about what you do, and get them to pay for something else you offer. Think of how those free downloads of Adobe Acrobat Reader get you used to working in Adobe's universe...and later, maybe you're dropping $2,500 for their Creative Suite. The free thing hooks you, then you want more. Prominent venture capitalist Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures recently called this My Favorite Business Model. Freebies, "freemiums" and other forms of giving part of what you've got away are also lauded in Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson's new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Mashable writer Stan Schroeder recently noted that Monty Python's posting of free clips from its movies and TV shows has created a huge spike in their DVD sales. If you think it won't work with your product, consider Debbie Fields. When nobody came into her first store in Palo Alto, Calif., she put her product on a tray and walked around the mall handing out free samples. What happened? You've heard of Mrs. Field's, I assume -- more than 30 years later, they've got nearly 400 stores. If you need more business, think about what you could give to your prospective customers. It can pay off big.
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We are a non profit organization and use events.org for their free online registraiton and free online donation management software. It works great and easy for us and our customers to use. Learning about their free software and using it has led us to buy their conference software. It was affordable and we would not have known about it unless they did their free software.
http://www.conference.registration.events.org/
Who doesn't like free?!
Fantastic post Carol.
Our own experience of this is that about a year ago I decided to give away a version of our technology as a FREE diagnostic and at the same time I designed a product called 30 Day Business Turnaround which supported the free diagnostic. We also put up a membership website with a FREE bronze level so that people could experience what we're all about BEFORE having to commit to a payment.
We did this because we found that small business owners generally 'Need us the most when they can afford us the least!' and the only way I thought to overcome this was to do something for FREE for them so they couls at least start getting value from our business.
The journey continues to get better and better as we've gone down this strategy
Andee Sellman
http://www.onesherpa.com
Definitely need to streamline costs when times are tough. Especially if looking to get a customer base. I have done some free work, and some very inexpensive work just to get things going. It's worth every penny.
http://webideasonline.com
http://webidasonline.com/business
I own an investment real estate brokerage company in San Francisco and came into the office this morning having almost surrendered to not meeting a biweekly goal. "The Power of Free" popped up in my google reader and it really hit me like a ton of bricks. Every 2 weeks we publish a 3-minute video that a few hundred customers really enjoy, and I decided to focus this video on Carol's ideas around free stuff. We cranked out the video, and in it we offered up 10 employees and brokers for 1 day of manual labor at an investor's building. I figured that we were already committed to helping them grow their wealth in real estate investing, why not strip it down to its bare bones, roll up our sleeves and do a little work, side-by-side, with our customers. Thanks for the push. If you're curious, and appreciate a good video, you are welcome to enjoy it on our homepage, www.wheelhousebrokerage.com.
This is one nice post, Carol.
I believe it will serve as a reading delight and an inspiration to entrepreneurs all over the world experiencing a turbulence in their respective business ventures.
I remembered an old adage (oh well, it's not really an adage but a quote I heard a friend of mine say at a party) while reading this: "To sum it all up, the best things in life are free..."
Wow this article is great. It's true that the power of free can go along way - sometimes, actually all the time you have to think outside the box
-Andrew
http://homeguidemag.com