Can you add too much value?

[ZCP]

The forum constantly mentions adding value first, rather than money chasing, then charging.
The thing is if you always constantly added value first,why woukd anyone pay you for anything? This is why I'm struggling with the concept.
So how do you decide the point when you have added enough value? When does adding value to someone first turn into basically working for them for free?
How many hours of free consultation would you give a non client? Or am I misunderstanding the point completely. I would appreciate any alternative ways of phrasing or examples (feel free to pm, or redirect me to an INSIDERS's thread) if you want to keep It quiet. As sometimes looking at things another way, can help make everything click.

Add some value. Then offer additional service (your product) for a fee. If they got value, they are then likely to purchase your product because then they get even more value.

Example: how much proposal / answering questions time should my engineering company put into a proposal? our time costs us a certain amount. profit on the job if we win it would be a certain amount. the likelihood of winning it is a certain percentage. Using numbers, if we put $1000 of time into a potential $40000 job that has a 50% profit that we win 4 out of 5 times (80%) ..... then we would expect $40000 x 0.5 x 0.8 = $16000 in job profit - $1000 in costs = $15000 overall job profit and we stay in business.

'Well how much time do we put into getting them to the proposal stage?', you ask. If the example above, we could put more time into the proposal if we had people free to do so, right?

If you are not working on paying work, then why not use your time to provide value for free to steer them to your product until you get someone to pay you to do more. You craft your 'initial offer or service' to entice them to buy. Like clean the den rug for free to get them to pay you to clean the rest of the rugs for a fee.

Another way is to show SO much expertise, that when you do offer the service they instantly buy. As an example, at the moment @biophase has shown incredible expertise in ecommerce. He has 5627 posts on this forum that have received 22803 likes (4.05 likes per post). So when he offered a service for people to pay him to help them w/ ecommerce, people flocked to him with bags of cash.

As another example with a leader offer, Chinese food place in the mall ..... offers you a sample on a toothpick (low cost to them) to get you to buy a full plate and drink (profit to them).

So, to tie it together for you. What is your product/service? What value can you offer to get them to look at your product/service? If you have free time, use it to provide value to entice buyers or build expertise.

Now, @LittleWolfie , please go DO something. Stop posting. Start doing. Stop action faking / over analyzing / asking for different wordings. At the moment, you have 298 posts that have received 144 likes (0.48 likes per post). If you keep posting instead of working, for the forum's sake please provide more value in your posts. That will then help you provide more value in your business.

Now in return for the value I just provided to you (and the forum), please go work on your business. Get your business going. Spend time on that. Please. Please.

 

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[Everyman]

There is a great book on it. It was mentioned in another thread (probably many times).

It's "Give and Take" by Adam Grant.

In a nutshell you should approach people and give value upfront without expectation to get something back. Then you can continue if you see the person/client is interested. You should probably feel it (I know it's vague, but it is common sense and experience). I don't think you could translate it to hours etc...

The author in the book says it should be at the third time (when you 'give' something for free), when you should stop 'giving' if you don't get anything back from this relationship. And this is the way the most successful 'givers' operate.

So give them one hour and see. You need to sacrifice more than that to prepare for a particular client anyway. He is also investing this hour to talk to a complete stranger to see if he can benefit. But don't do too much free work for one person. Usually they tend not to appreciate it or just don't know how to benefit from it anyway. When somebody is ready to open his wallet it means he is mentally prepared to take it seriously (sorry for vagueness but it applies to many areas).

 

[Andy Black]

I like helping people. If anything I have to be careful lest I end up spread too thin. What works for me is to help people and be seen helping people. Then I'm leveraging the time spent helping one person to help more people.

If I repeat myself a lot then I write a formal thread and link to it in future, again leveraging my time better.

If you're going to help people then see how you can help others at the same time. Try to scale it.

I record chats with people I've had and drop them in the forum. That helps the first person, and then anyone else who comes across the recording.

MJ wrote a book to help even more people. Even when he's asleep.

 

[Jon L]

There was a book I read (can't remember the name) where the author did some academic research into the various mindsets of employees at various companies. He broke the mindsets down into three categories:

1. scarcity / stinginess (always looking out for number 1, gotta get mine, zero sum game, etc)
2. Helpful / always giving (would always look for a way to add value to a situation, regardless of the personal cost)
3. Helpful / giving when appropriate (I don't remember the term he used for this mindset, which is too bad because it was really good, but the key was that these people had a mindset of adding value wherever they went, but not at the expense of their own personal goals.

Guess which mindset made the most money / was promoted the fastest / etc?

The third one, by far.

It sounds like you're thinking with a #1 mindset. It also sounds like you think everyone here is preaching a #2 mindset. We're not. We're preaching #3.

 

[LittleWolfie]

The forum constantly mentions adding value first, rather than money chasing, then charging.

The thing is if you always constantly added value first,why woukd anyone pay you for anything? This is why I'm struggling with the concept.

So how do you decide the point when you have added enough value? When does adding value to someone first turn into basically working for them for free?

How many hours of free consultation would you give a non client? Or am I misunderstanding the point completely. I would appreciate any alternative ways of phrasing or examples (feel free to pm, or redirect me to an INSIDERS's thread) if you want to keep It quiet. As sometimes looking at things another way, can help make everything click.

 

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[biophase]

1. scarcity / stinginess (always looking out for number 1, gotta get mine, zero sum game, etc)
2. Helpful / always giving (would always look for a way to add value to a situation, regardless of the personal cost)
3. Helpful / giving when appropriate (I don't remember the term he used for this mindset, which is too bad because it was really good, but the key was that these people had a mindset of adding value wherever they went, but not at the expense of their own personal goals.

It sounds like you're thinking with a #1 mindset. It also sounds like you think everyone here is preaching a #2 mindset. We're not. We're preaching #3.

People who care also don't want you to be a #2. I had a situation a few months ago where an animal shelter wanted to buy 500 units of XYZ. I told them that since they were a shelter I would sell it to them below my cost. They said, Oh no, we can't do that, you have to make money, you are a business. So they agreed to pay $1 above my cost. Why? Because they want me to stay in business too! They don't just want to save money today and have me disappear in a year.

 

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[biophase]

Yes, I think it is enlightened self interest. You know that doing it will increase your chances of more wealth and that is why you do it. After all if you increase the amount of wealth in the world, you can be even richer, so it is in your own best interests.

That actually sounds really tempting, and could well motivate me to make money or try and barter or try and bring you down. I would have been delighted by that reply.

I certainly see a lot of value in that offer. I have a problem and you are offering to solve it. I'm pretty certain your being sarcastic though, which makes me sad. So I'm probably totally missing the point.

Neither of those sound like they would add the kind of value your offer would....

So you think that I am replying to you to increase my chance of more wealth? I'm responding because it is in my best interest to give you, a random person on the other side of the world, advice? If this is the type of conclusion your brain comes to when you read other people's posts, then I can see why you can't comprehend the offering of value.

If you can't comprehend giving for giving's sake, then you yourself will never be able to do the same. And if you can't do this, the people you come in contact with will see that you aren't truly giving, but doing something because you expect something in return. In fact, you are marketing in a sneaky way. Maybe that's why people won't pay you.

Now regarding my offer and why it sounds tempting to you. Think. Why does my offer sound more tempting than some random person that PMs you? Why would you pay me $300/hr? You don't know me. I could just take your money and run.

Isn't it because you've read some of my other posts? Isn't it because you have some background information about me? How is this different than @Andy Black's posts that you've seen?

 

[NursingTn]

To OP:

Are you interested in philosophy or results?

If what you seek is financial freedom, then do whatever you must to make your business succeed. Businesses that tend to succeed help people overcome a problem. Sometimes, businesses are too small and lack credibility in people's eyes. In this case, such businesses may need to do "free" work until they become credible enough for people to start paying.

-----

If what you seek is elaboration on the idea of "chase value, not money", then here:

Solve problems to add value. Add a price to your solution to see if people feel it's worth paying for to solve their problems. If they don't pay you to solve their problems, then it is ultimately a problem with perceived value. People aren't paying you because they do not believe it is worth it.

You can convince them it's worth it by doing free work, giving them a taste of it. Since you seem to be in IT, look at softwares. Versions of this "free work" includes trials, access to a software that is limited on features unless you pay for access to get the rest of the features, etc.

"Free work" is ultimately to convince prospective customers that, yes, your service/product is worth it. You do this until people believe you're worth paying for to solve their problems.

-----

OP, I have seen many forum members I respect and admire respond to you. I hope you will one day understand the message they are trying to tell you: Simply care about people. Respect them. Appreciate them. Love them for who they are and what they can become. All of the wonderful people that have responded to you did so because they just care about you and want you to succeed since they just care.

Why do I care that you understand them one day? Because empathy and compassion will make you way happier than money ever would; science proves it. I want you to be happy because, why not? You deserve it simply by virtue of existing.

 

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[PureA]

You add value to someone by getting in their head and serving up exactly what they would want before they even ask.

Because this is so rare, it is hard to ignore.

When you are looking to buy something and the sales copy addresses your top 3 concerns in the first paragraph... are you going to buy?

Don't view adding value as you loosing something, you're not.

You work hard for the needs of others, and through this you win their appreciation via smiles and £££.

 

[Jon L]

If you can remember the name of that book, that would be way helpful. Or if you could remember enough details to find it on Google.





Yep, I have a tendency to be a #2 as well. Have to remind myself.

Its called "Give and Take" by Adam Grant.

Reading through some of the synopses, I got some of the details wrong. The essence, though, is correct - be a giver, but not too much, and you'll likely be very successful.

 

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[Danny Sullivan]

I didn't experience "give value first" as "do stuff for free".

I's your attitude. For example:

You can write an e-mail to a company you want to do business with like this:

Hello company xyz.

Please send me your pricelist, i want to see where i can make $$$ for myself.

Or this:

Hello company xyz.

Please send me your pricelist, i think i can help you with sales.

Make it about them, not you - provide value first.

Or i case of a product, you could write:

My product has this and that and this and that what all the others don't have.

Or:

Our product will help you with this and that. And this and that will become easier for you.

If you clean houses or company buildings, you could make your first cleaning free of charge, overdeliver and let them decide if they want to hire you.

In case of consulting a non-client, i would consider giving them one session "for free" and point out what you can do for them, how you can help them, if they decide to engage with your service.

Hope this helps.

 

[IGP]

I'm trying to add value with my posts. Am I failing at that? What could provide more value? I did get a lot of my count up when I was in hospital, read and post was all I could do. I suspect it has slowed down a bit now I'm able to act too.

Look at your posts "301" and your likes "148" (For every post you make you get 1/2 like.)

Now ask yourself are you adding value?

The reality here is that it's going to be hard for you to add "value" on this forum with your posts because you are limited by your experience in business and entrepreneurship.

Think about how you can help people get what they want.

Random example:
Say you live in an area with lots of elderly people.

Would delivering their groceries add value to their lives?
Would carrying boxes or helping with chores add value to their lives?
Would doing hard manual labor for them add value to their lives?

The answer in most cases would be: YES.

Now, if you did that for a few weeks, most of these people would insist on paying you because they see the value in what you are doing.

Then start a business that does that for 100, 1000, 1 million old people.

 

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[Late Bloomer]

I'll need to come back to the entire thread later as I'm just checking in for a moment between errands. For the original poster, I can say, absolutely too much value delivery can be a problem.

Value is what the customer (client, investor etc.) sees as improving their life and they are willing and able to pay for it at pricing that is profitable. If the buyer doesn't see what's delivered as useful, or if the buyer isn't willing or able to pay for it, then you are no longer doing business. You are generously giving away your production, in a form of philanthropy.

On a small scale this could be a sensible investment in goodwill of happy buyers.

On a larger scale it can destroy the company, because you're spending money to build far more than you can ever make back with sales.

This is very clearly discussed in the Toyota Production System and in Six Sigma. There are several ways to waste money, manpower, equipment, and supplies when making a car, such as piling up unused inventory, and creating defective parts that have to be discarded. There are useful checklists available to help you make sure you aren't wasting your resources.

A very important form of waste is Overprocessing. This is when you make additional improvements that cannot be sold or marketed for more than it cost to make them.

A simple example would be to think of the cost of gold-plating anything that people usually don't buy at the prices it would take to gold-plate it.

Toyota could cover every car with a layer of gold, which would sure make them all more shiny and beautiful. But Toyota could not make back that expense ever.

Toyota makes a few cars at a higher quality level, for the smaller number of buyers who want a more luxurious car. For most cars, they get to good enough and then they stop.

Rolls Royce never stops overprocessing, which is why they sell so fewer cars than Toyota. There just aren't that many really rich people who want a luxurious, custom, handbuilt art car.

Overprocessing can be done in a service business as well. Someone who mows lawns could also clean the driveway with a toothbrush, but they'd never make money from that extra effort.

 

[Andy Black]

I am unable to work out how you demonstrated value to @Late Bloomer to the point that they would pay you straight away, rather than looking for free work.

Do you know what makes someone referrable?

1. They have manners. They say please and thank you.
2. They turn up on time.
3. They do what they said they'd do, or at least let you know what's happening.
4. They're competent.

If you're excellent at 4) it won't make up for being cr@p at 1-3.

It's the same for hiring someone.


Soo... does @Late Bloomer think I'm competent enough at Google Ads?
What if he's read one or more of these threads?

• Andy's AdWords Posts

What about 1-3?

• Do I appear to have manners? Would I be someone pleasant to work with?
• Would I turn up on time?
• Would I do what I said I'd do, or communicate what's happening if things aren't going to plan?

If @Late Bloomer answers Yes to these as well, then he'll consider working with me.

Why would he not need a free trial? Because he's already seen all the free stuff I've done because he's come across it in his travels in the forum. That was the free, try-before-you-buy already.

 

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[Andy Black]

So give them one hour and see. You need to sacrifice more than that to prepare for a particular client anyway. He is also investing this hour to talk to a complete stranger to see if he can benefit.

This is a very good point. People forget that while you're giving an hour of your time for free to talk to someone, they're also giving an hour of their time to you for free. It's why people find it hard to just get someone on a quick call - they don't realise that to even get on that call the recipient of your free hour needs to believe it’s worth *their* hour.

 

[Jon L]

I'm a total #2 by default. I have to remind myself pretty regularly to not fall into that trap. Not easy to do.

If I remember right, the #2's were the least successful but most liked. #1's were more successful but disliked, and #3's were the most successful and both liked and respected.

 

[Ismail941]

The forum constantly mentions adding value first, rather than money chasing, then charging.

The thing is if you always constantly added value first,why woukd anyone pay you for anything? This is why I'm struggling with the concept.

So how do you decide the point when you have added enough value? When does adding value to someone first turn into basically working for them for free?

How many hours of free consultation would you give a non client? Or am I misunderstanding the point completely. I would appreciate any alternative ways of phrasing or examples (feel free to pm, or redirect me to an INSIDERS's thread) if you want to keep It quiet. As sometimes looking at things another way, can help make everything click.

Demarco Said this below example in his video!

Easy to Understand just like a Piece of Cake

 

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[Walter Hay]

I give for free because I enjoy helping people. It's as simple as that. Maybe if I needed the money I might act differently.

I had to begin offering a sourcing service at a fee, in order to reduce the excessive amount of time I was spending doing sourcing for free. I figured that if there is a charge involved, some people would be less inclined to ask for help on something that they could possibly do themselves if they thought about it, and that would save me time.

The fee is: "Whatever you think it is worth". Often I don't even receive a thank you. Yes there are people who take advantage of you, but I certainly don't grieve at losing what I didn't ask for anyway.

Other times I am staggered at the generous amount that is chosen as payment for my service. It warms the cockles of my heart to see that my help really is appreciated. I pass that money on to a charity.

Comments posted as a result of my help whether paid for or free, probably result in book sales, but that is another story.

Walter

 

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[Jon L]

This is becoming exhausting. The small points you make in response to each statement aren't really useful.

What I'd suggest is that you summarize your position (for yourself...don't post it) in 2 sentences. Then, in 2 sentences write out what you're going to do and why.

And then do it.

Then, in a couple months, re-evaluate things. If you do come back and post about it, keep your responses short - a few sentences max.

(Notice the structure of what I wrote above. I didn't defend my positions. They live or die on their own. Why? I know that if you are open to what I'm saying, I don't need to say any more than what I said. If you're not open, expanding on each point until its so precisely made that a computer could execute on it won't make any difference.)

 

[biophase]

Do you think there are cases when there are specific types of people you shouldn't add value towards?

It’s ironic that your post above is a great example. When someone is asking please add value, then you shouldn’t do it, because you know there’s no ROI on it. Anyone asking for free stuff is a straight no.

 

[biophase]

Well it was a purposeful hypocrite test.

I'm so glad of it, though because your response is perfect.



That phrasing has just made it all click, thanks a lot. It is going on my wall



I'm thinking t-shirt for that. It's great because it's not about mindset.It's still allows for charging and giving value. It still justifies my open source work(nobody asked for it) and spec work or pet projects.

It gives a clear cut way to avoid this, "too much work for free" when they ask me, I can charge. When they dont ask me, I'm adding value. So forum posts can be adding value, when someone picks up on your work and then asks to chat, that's where they are asking me. If they want it, then they can pay me what the value I've added is worth. Or they can decline because I'm money chasing and I can go give it away instead, building value for someone in the future who does see my value.

An example let some say in coding is that you are in a proposal meeting about coding a webpage and you make good suggestions like:

I think you should go responsive because of xyz.
I think blue is a better theme color because studies show it converts better
I’d suggest you have 2 separate databases in your backend because xyz

That’s all value coming from your experience.

If you client says that sounds great can you do a mock up before I sign up?

Then we are getting into the free part. Now you are doing actual work. Maybe you can make a non working single page in photoshop but don’t code anything.

 

[biophase]

Likes are vanity, profit is sanity. I measure my value add in terms of money gained. I have no interest in being liked.

You are missing the whole point of likes on this forum. Do you think I'm trying to get likes? Is that my motivation for replying to your post right now? Is my motivation to extract money from you? What is my motivation for choosing to hit the reply button?

Because you measure your value add in terms of money gained, that is precisely the reason that it is eluding you.

If I were to use your thinking... this is how I would have replied to your initial post.

"Sure you can add too much value. I bet you are giving away too much for free. I can show you exactly how to do just enough to show that you are competent to make it easier for people to want to pay you. PM me, and we can talk on Skype, It would only be $300 an hour."

 

[Andy Black]

If I remember right, the #2's were the least successful but most liked. #1's were more successful but disliked, and #3's were the most successful and both liked and respected.

Being a #2 by default is a great start. It’s especially helpful starting out when you’ve less value to add than a willingness to work.

For folks who default to #2 then I agree that we have to make a conscious effort to put systems/processes in place to not get taken advantage of, and to ensure we “put our own oxygen mask on first.”

My hack is to realise I won’t help as many people as I could if I go out of business.

 

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[Jon L]

On mobile, so apolgies for formatting.
@ChrisV

Since I am unable to identify "nitpicking" or "combative questions "

My options are a) stop posting b) stop asking questions (which eliminates the value for me to learn)

Or c) the delay tactic, where I post with a longer delay to give you time to simmer down.

If people are willing to call me out and tell me exactly what the words are I can address it.



Sure and the person selling the cheeseburger thinks they are better off with the $10 than a cheeseburger. The "value add" is just arbitrage between specialist, the exchange itself is what adds the value. The customer is just as important in adding value

No one considers if there is a cheeseburger free trial, or the sellers' attitude.

If one wants £7,000 they need to provide something that somebody else values more than £7,000. Right? If the people lack the £7,000 then no matter how much you help,it will never come back

Pschyopaths tend to end up as CEOs

Take a look at all the cases of explotation,plenty of people do take advantage of the generous people.

Perhaps their are models where freemium,free trial works and modes where it never works.

@biophase what do you use to measure your value add?

I think criticism (especially constructive) amd feedback are a much better measure than likes because they are limited similar to money (you only have so much time)

If I knew each person's income I could calculate it precisely,in the mean time I would say #of posts in response is a much better indication of value than likes.

The exception being forums where they are limited, I like how steemium works,where you get crypto from people based on posts. The value is much clearer, feedback better and yoy get instant r


It is silly for me to measure value add here, because I lack the ability amd experience to add value to anyone. So I value add elsewhere (recently helping someone to recover important files for their college work from a broken laptop)

I then ask questions here in order to learn business

Though I have made a couple of attempts to add value by answering IT queries,I never received decent feedback

we're asking you to go through a shift in mindset. You're not seeing what we're talking about yet. Read that book I mentioned above, and let this all sink in over the course of a few months or a year or so. Practice what we're suggesting about giving.

I like your idea about answering IT questions on here. Forget about the feedback. Just give for giving's sake. You'll get better at it. You have to get into the mind of the people you're trying to help. Figure out what their true, unstated need is, and help on that. (this is an incredibly useful skill to have in sales)

Here's the thing, though. You'll start to discover that you know more about stuff than you thought you did. You'll find areas where you can give that you didn't think about before.

Those same areas can turn into serious money

 

[biophase]

@biophase what do you use to measure your value add?

I don't measure value and I don't think many others on here do either? Your problem is that you think that all motivation is self-centered. That people only do things to benefit themselves. And from this standpoint, you only must do things that somehow will benefit you.

Where and how am I adding value by answering this thread?

1) You could say that I'm adding value to you because I'm answering your question. I'm using my knowledge to teach you. So how much value did I gain for myself here? The answer is zero. I don't receive any value by answering your question. Maybe somewhere in the future I may get a "thank you" or a "like" from you.

2) You could say that I am demostrating my knowledge to others reading this thread and in turn, somebody reading this might hire me for my services or offer me thanks in the form of a present or a service.

Now, do you really think that I think about these 2 possibilities?

The exception being forums where they are limited, I like how steemium works,where you get crypto from people based on posts. The value is much clearer, feedback better and yoy get instant r

If this is what you think, you should be Paypaling money to everyone who has responded to any of your threads. Have you offered to do so?

 

[broswoodwork]

I'm coming in without having read any of the rest of the thread, so I don't really know what else is going on.

If you're struggling with the concept of why not to chase money, it may help to remove money itself from the value equation. Money is just an extra step.

Money is just a stand in (like a variable in math) for what you, and everyone else actually want and need.

Return to the primitive:
You, the farmer, want X; the butcher needs Y, but produces X. Thankfully, as a farmer you produce more Y than you need, so you need give him enough of what he values that he can part with what you need.

Money acts as a place holder, when the butcher wants Z. You have no value to give the butcher with your excess Y, so your value has to be channeled to the wanter of Y, in exchange for money, with which you can buy X and the farmer can buy Z.

See? Chasing money is a phantom. It's just chasing a means of exchange.

So you may say, "so I just chase X?"

Not really, but kind of.

What you need to do is switch your mind to the producer mentality, and chase the best value you can put out into the world. What is your Y? How much of it can you produce? How much exchange value will butchers give you for it? And how do you give it to as many butchers as possible?

Then, you'll have all of the X you'll ever need.

Also, good morning. I need coffee.

To take that a step further, and put a bow on top, the first and primary two part question in value equation: Who is your butcher and what is their Y?

Answer that, and get to work giving them the best quantity and quality of Y that you can. Chase Y, even though you personally want X.

Edit: Back to the original picture of attracting vs chasing cats. If you want to be surrounded by cats, don't spend a second chasing cats; spend your time chasing the world's best cat food (or cat food relatively better in some way than what they can get nextdoor).

 

[Jon L]

That would make a huge difference. I can execute those instructions and GCC stands ready! If a computer can do it, then the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room argument can suggest that it is the appearance of the mind-set rather than the mind-set itself is important. Just like how my back brace gives me the appearance of confidence by correcting my posture that appears in confident.

No, it wouldn't. This needs to make sense for you emotionally first. (but I'm a logical, not emotional thinker) No, you're not. NO one is. I'm a Myers-Briggs INTP personality type. I'm the very definition of logical. I'm also 45 and have been there/done that already. Believe me when I say that you'll save yourself a ton of time by not over-analyzing everything like you're doing here.

Please. Let all this sink in. Slow down. Breathe. Try some of this out. Come back and tell us your *experiences* with it. But not for a month or two.

 

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[biophase]

Cool, add some more value to me then please.

Why? Are you a potential future client?

What you are asking is literally what you were asking about. You are asking for “do stuff for free” because there’s no potential for a value add here.

 

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[Late Bloomer]

How many hours of free consultation would you give a non client?

There are only two business reasons to ever do a free consultation. (I'm leaving out philanthrophy, or helping a cause.)

The first reason is that you don't have a strong enough reputation, or strong enough reputation, for people to be ready to just pay you already.

I've seen and heard enough from Andy Black, that if I wanted to hire an Adwords manager, he would not have to prove himself by managing a small campaign for free. No, I'd directly pay what he charges, because there's so much demonstration of his skill set.

Same thing is true in many fields. Although a Toyota dealer gives you a free test-drive, Harvard University doesn't give you a free semester so you can decide if you like the school. Ernst & Young doesn't give a free audit of the first quarter, so you can decide if you want to pay for an audit of the whole year. With most popular musicians, you can hear a recording for free on the radio or online, but you have to buy a ticket to get into the concert at all.

The second reason is that it's reasonable for every potential client to have an initial conversation. A little bit of time is at risk of being wasted, but no money changes hands until there's a mutual agreement that a paid consultation is the right thing. The consultant gets to tell an inappropriate client that they should just go away. The client gets to find out what it's like to have their own personal conversation with the consultant. Almost all attorneys work this way, no matter how famous and well-marketed they are.

A "free initial hour consultation" will only have fifteen minutes of advice freely given. The client will explain their situation, and get asked questions to clarify it, for about half an hour. Then there are some free suggestions. Then there's an explanation of the methodology, pricing, and paymen terms if the client would like to continue along these lines. It's not putting on a show. It's showing the ability to understand a situation and quickly provide very targeted perspective and guidance.

 

[ChrisV]

Whoa whoa whoa dude.. yea you're completely missing the concept. Have you read the books?

Watch, take notes.. whatever. The whole concept of value is explained here. I feel like we're spinning our wheels in the snow here. Let's shovel out the tires.