Inspired by @sehurlburt I have some brief thoughts on free as a price point:
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There is substantial value in free “friendcatchers” which one uses as marketing for never-free offerings. Note that you do have to be intentional about how you turn attention for the friendcatcher into sales leads.
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Good customers travel in packs. Bad customers travel in packs, too. If you collect the attention of pathological customers with free or deeply underpriced offerings, the referrals and exposure you get will be to people offering mostly more of the same.
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The same is true of customers who happily pay premium rates for services. You know who they’re going to talk you up to? Peers who can afford premium rates for services.
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“How do you differentiate what you give away for free from what you charge for?” comes up in consulting, mostly from people who are very in confident that their offering has value and who are generally undercharging by orders of magnitude.
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“What would you charge for a coffee conversations?” I am not in the business of selling coffee conversations (and never was). When I was in the business of selling consulting engagements, the engagements would have deliverables, substantial prework, etc.
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Off the cuff riffing about the challenges a business faced? No charge because that was not the product; it only existed to suggest that I was capable of producing the product. If a coffee conversation went well and someone was a qualified buyer, escalate to “Want a proposal?”
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Incidentally, and this goes out to many creative friends: you need to have restrained professional confidence and boundaries. I have watched people get mad and burn bridges over “Can you come give a talk at my company?” because they were offended about being asked for free work.
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A better response to that is: “I would be happy to give you a proposal for a training engagement. What did you have in mind?”
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In the worst case scenario, you’re about two more questions from a hard No. Talk to a good lawyer sometime informally if you want to see someone very good at this in action. They are generally good about informally giving pointers but if you ask for a contract review Shields Up.
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End of conversation
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I don't immediately disagree, but what about Netflix and their 30-days free offer? Unfortunately no link, but supposedly responsible for 100-130% growth over 2013-2015? I guess I'm getting at, isn't the value proposition the most important?
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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