the subtle lessons

 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 th...

On days when dealing with a difficult customer, ask 3 questions: Is the customer always right? And… Should you insist your way or be flexible in your service? Is there a balance to be achieved?

First up, in line with the ‘ most ideas ain’t original ‘ belief, the idea behind this post is taken from Making Ads Pay by John Caples.  Picked it up from the library after work. You’d immediately recognise a good book especially when there are gems found in the very first page.  (This book also made it into my top copywriting books, more at ‘ Resources That All Successful Copywriters Use ‘ ) And so this blog post was born! So back to Darwin’s theory of evolution and your business… A little background to Darwin’s theory of evolution. So as a young and curious lad, Darwin was incredibly observant of nature and its players. On one of his extended travels, he collected specimens from the different places he visited (I suspected wanderlust). As he was unpacking and admiring his souvenirs, he noticed similarities and was intrigued by these discoveries. Thus began his conception and study of natural selection. In a single sentence, natural selection is the theory that evolution is d...