When I was a teenager I worked at a local mall in the food court area at a popular fast food restaurant. The restaurant offered the usual burgers and fries and even ice cream. My usual schedule had me working during both the lunch and dinner hours which made the time really go by faster.
I remember one day at work when my boss’ boss came for a visit and after he left the entire store was called in for a quick store meeting. We were told that we had been having declining sales and that we needed to do something about it. Apparently the restaurant next door to us was kicking our butt in sales and it was time to take action.
It was so obvious why we were being beaten so badly in the sales department by our next door neighbor. You see they had the wherewithal to have employees out in front of the restaurant handing out free samples to any and every person that walked by. These days I give away free stuff in my residual income business but back then our team hadn’t caught on to this particular strategy.
When my boss finally figured what we already knew, he decided that we should be out there giving away free samples too. I admit that back then it was a real chore to constantly smile and give away these samples but in the long run it taught me a very valuable business lesson. I learned that in order to sell someone something you must first help them solve a problem for free.
I realized how giving away free samples helped our customers make a more informed decision when it came to solving their problem of hunger and that they were more likely to come see my when they wanted to order food in the future.
This shift in strategy as a teenager helped me in adulthood because now my sales approach in my residual income business is based around giving away something of value for free in order to help a customer solve a problem.
And when it comes to giving a little something to get a bigger something, either you want your business to grow or not.
It’s karma, too. The more you give, the more you get. I’ve found that free ebooks, etc. can really attract a crowd once. Gotta like those “free” visitors.