Feeding the “Free” Factors

Hi Jay,

You are bringing up an important issue here in my view. I am curious though, where do you stop giving and where do you monetize and what is more important: what is the actual purpose of giving away the freebies?

I have seen on more than one occasion that people are working with the idea of giving and I see many promoting the idea of “giving to get” (it has been the slogan of for instance the SICU group).

I will share some of the thoughts I put out on my blog in respect of giving. Please be advised that I am not suggesting anything, it’s just that I am seeing the “give to get” slogan turn up so often and I think that my thoughts on this subject could be complimentary.

The initial thoughts I formulated in the a blog post with the title “Do we Give or do we Give to Get” with a follow up in an article “Giving to Get Revisted”.

I seein your post that you are like many defining your giving away to at least some extent in ROI terms:

* “Is the freebie a value added idea, insight or knowledge desired by
a community? There is no power in the gift unless it is crucial to your
business. Have you thought beyond the “free” and how it will or could
become a commercial product or service in The Relationship Economy?
* What virtuous circle will this freebie circulate in? Is it the loop
you most need to amplify? What segment of community do you aim to
serve?
* In the long run, the unbounded support of a customer is more
valuable than a fixed amount of their money. How will you eventually
capture the support of customers if there is initially no flow of
money?”

To me but that is personal it poses the question of purpose of your “gift”. Is it still a gift or has the gift become a “means to get” what you are after? This is not a strange thought at all, it is part of who we are as humans and the way in which we are socialized especially when it comes to defining succes.

Due to our ‘Western’ terms of success is is in my view that we more than once don’t recognize the
fantastic returns we are getting because they might not be translated
to financial and generally accepted notions of success. More
importantly we are at all times conditioned to think in terms of ROI.

What I claimed in those blogs is that the way forward is just to give, virtually
unconditionally and only limited by your possibilities and within terms
of reason (although I recognize that is a relative notion that can mean
different things to different people). The giving does not have to be
in any specific form, it can be in anything and for any need, with or
without a specific request for assistance: a blog, helping someone
cross a busy street, ringing someones door bell to tell them they left
the lights of their car on instead of just walking on, exceeding
clients expectations and looking for ways to give that little bit extra
they could use but did not pay for, helping out people in need that are
not paying clients just because they need it and perhaps even when they
do not have the funds to pay for professional help, creating a link to
someone’s website or blog, anything.

My second claim is that this does bring return on investment, however from a business point of view: the turns are not as controlled, which is of course because the investments are less controlled and hung up to a very generic purpose: love and compassion.

Although not always explicit, this modfel appears to work in agrarian communities here in New Zealand. It is normal and part of the social norm you help out your community. In turn the community is there for you when you need the assistance. No one seems to keep score, there is no set plan, just ring the bell when you need assistance. They just do it.

But now translate that to a business model: I see farmers here succeed whilst at the same time they are helping out their community which is basically made up of the competition and for all to floorish. They are not even aware of the success formula, it’s just part of the cultural heritage.

I a sense that is the type of model I appreciate or at least am learning from where it comes to any return on investment. Others would talk in terms of karma.

I guess what I am trying to say is that there is always a return on investment. Personally I have seen this work for me in moist incredible ways. Perhaps the best example is my ongoing relationship with Michael Pokocky. May years ago we came into contact and both of us decided to sinmply bring the best of ourselves to the table in every single communciation covering any imaginable subject. As a result, I ended up going beyond myself ( I can not speak for Michael) and have been in a position to develop and grow in ways never imagined before: as a human and professionally.

This has created room for new approaches to life and business. Maintaining the ‘lifestyle’ and ‘philosophy’ of living a life that serves humanity on a macro, meso and micro scale by just relentlesly give out of love, ended up bringing me all the advantages you are discussing. It was however never planned and even in (sometimes very hard times) I stuck to it if only because it is so liberating to not be bothered by hidden agendas and the stress that comes with them.

In my view therefore things start with the giving and the economy will evolve from that, perhaps not in the way we can control or plan it, but for now I would say, it can only get better.

Thanks again my friend. I truly enjoy the conversations and appreciate all the work you are so relentlessly bringing to the table for further exploration.