Skip to main content

‘Free’

 Should ‘Free’ consumers be treated as customers?

If you have been in the business scene / entrepreneur scene for some time, you’d have noticed a common advice from the veterans.

“Don’t give your products/services away for free”; simply because ‘free’ customers are the most difficult to deal with.

I’ve had the same experience myself.

I think this stems from 2 issues;

  • Internal ‘Struggle’

When you give your time/product/service for free, there’ll always be a internal debate of “how much time/effort should I be spending on this project”. This struggle will always be present, whether conscious or not.

I find myself holding back for free projects at time, especially when coupled with the 2nd issue.

  • (generally) Demands from the free consumer

It could be a general bias that stems from the previous point. But I’ve found that free consumers tend to ask for more. Or try to get more than what was originally promised.

Since its all ‘free’, the additional requests cost nothing to them. They have no price point to anchor their requests/demands on.

tl;dr version: Don’t give your time / product / service away for free.

There should always be an equal trade in value.

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Ulysses Pact - how to prevent your future self from screwing up

Ulysses (aka Odysseus) is a Greek hero and King in Homer's Odyssey  which describes his journey home after a long, drawn out war. Along the way, his ship had to pass by the Sirens, whose songs were said entice sailors to change course and suffer a shipwreck.  Like any of us, he was curious about the Sirens' songs and he wanted to hear them for himself.  But he also wanted to make it back home without a shipwreck.  What did he do?  Source: Wikipedia As the captain of his ship, he ordered all his men to cover their ears with wax so that they do not get seduced by the Sirens' songs. Next, he made a pact with his men to bind him up on the mast, to ignore his demands of changing the course of the ship while they passed the Sirens and to have their swords on hand in case he breaks free from the mast.  They survived the journey passed the Sirens without a shipwreck.  This became known as Ulysses Pact or Ulysses Contract - a decision made in free-will today,...
Read more

Big Picture Easy, Execution Messy

It’s easy to see the big picture, really. Read some relevant books, read some articles posted online, read some forum reviews or experience sharing by people in the industry. And almost everyone can become a consultant. Just look at the big picture, spot the obvious gaps, and…yak. Talk is cheap. Execution is what brings in the money. But Execution is messy. There are legacy issues. There are stubborn mindsets. There are cemented SOPs. There are undecipherable data. What makes you special today is the ability to convert your big picture, empty talk into executable actions that bring the results you talk about. But few can do that. Can I?
Read more

how 2021 started

I ended 2020 with "The Midnight Library", a fiction book about a girl in despair who finds herself in a library filled with infinite possibilities to how her life could be, after an attempted suicide. The plot was predictable, but the journey was memorable. A good reminder that we already have everything we need to become who we want to be. We just need to commit to the goal and have the guts to take on the process. I started 2021 with the docu-film, "Dick Johnson is dead" (available on Netflix), a lighthearted take on the impact of dementia and pending death. "He's a psychiatrist. I'm a cameraperson. I suggested we make a movie about him dying. He said yes." - Kristen Johnson Kirsten Johnson comes up with comical ways her dad would die, in an attempt to help them and their loved ones cope with his pending death. It was funny, intimate and surprisingly intimate.  "She kills me. Multiple times. And I come back to life. I...
Read more