Free Free Free Free…..Fee!

(Part 2 in a 3 Part series on “People will not buy in this environment”)

I’m squeezing this post in while visiting the relatives in St. Louis, watching Kathy Lee Gifford host the Today Show waxing eloquently about “how not to raise a brat” in this day and age. Writing on a whim and being able to connect with you kinda gives social media all new meaning  (as I implore my 16 and 13 year olds to “Please pay attention to Kathy!!!”)

But it’s been too long since the last post, thanks to OC (Operation Christmas) – which NEVER seems to end at our house, even long after the big day. Anyways, I digress – and I’m being a BRAT!

The essence of this post is that people WILL buy in this environment. They just won’t buy the farm, the whole chalupa in this environment. You must chunk it down for them in bite sized pieces. And if that’s not enough, you must give them free tasters as part of your marketing efforts. (Recall our last post on the difference between marketing and sales.) Giving away free value (bite sized pieces, not the whole sandwich) is the hallmark of your marketing efforts. 

My good friend Ben Stone of RPO Consulting recently reminded me of an excellent phrase from Jeffrey Gitomer, the sales guru. Gitomer says “people love to buy, but they hate to be sold to.”  Absolutely true – so we all must give customers a reason to buy by giving away free value.

Your  marketing mantra goes like this: free – free – free – free …….. fee!! In other words, you may want to think about giving away some freebies to demonstrate your value-add. Once customers experience some value, they’ll be more than ready and willing to make the purchase. My other good friend Mike Sansone of converstations.com fame talks about the free bite-sized tasters on a toothpick outside of Chik-Fil-A. How many grilled chicken sandwiches in the mall do you think those tasters on a toothpick have sold???

So what piece of your product or service offerings can you give away for free to get customers interested? Recall our definition of marketing:  Marketing is the process by which you accumulate a reservoir of people who may, one day, be interested in buying. Selling is the process by which you help a person who is in the reservoir make an informed and well-timed decision to buy.

Giving away value is an approach doesn’t come naturally for most people or organizations. One of my past customers was a prominent public garden. This was a garden whose potential customers could have been literally anyone on the planet. But only a small percentage of the pool of potential were regulars – the rest just kept driving by because they thought they didn’t fit the profile based on what they saw from the outside looking in. So the question became “what can we do to get those cars to pull in and stay a while?” What if we started giving out free passes to non-members like they were candy?

Initially this was a difficult concept to get across. But the more they thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense. And it served to be a nice counter-balance to the price increase they had previously just initiated.

You MUST find ways to give away free value to develop that reservoir of potential customers. Blogs and electronic newsletters are both great ways to share free value. (It’s entirely possible that your business could be completely transformed from this three part series alone!) Feel free to comment other ways you are using (or should be using) to give free value and develop your reservoir of potential customers.

As part of this post, my offer to you is a half hour in person or on the phone to explore your marketing strategy and how you could break down your product or service offerings to give away some free tasters. Of course, this half hour offer to you is free! (You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.)

(As I finish writing  this post, you’ll be happy to learn that the family is still wrapping prezzies for the next batch of relatives we will visit as part of OC. The widescreen has sparingly been flipped from Kathie Lee to Sports Center.)