What is the true value of free?
• For a budget-conscious family, free stretches the grocery budget.
• For the single mother, it can be hot food for breakfast,
• For the business owner, it may be attractive to buy more than one product.
• For the home-based entrepreneur, it can cost your business hundreds, if not thousands of dollars over the life of your business.
For years, as a home business owner, I was always looking for meeting rooms, particularly the free meeting room. Because I wanted to be a leader who led by example, I thought that by showing my team that there were places to host meetings and that they didn’t have an out-of-pocket investment, I was helping them pave the path to leadership. Unfortunately, that investment turned out to be the most damaging investment in my business.
Open your mind and let’s walk this journey together and recognize how much free can cost you.
Meeting room number 1. Local coffee shop, essentially there are big boxes and local coffee shops. Free Wi-Fi and sometimes password protected Wi-Fi, but who is sitting next to you while you are entering your password. The scanner that is sitting on the backpack drawing your information and the recorder that is recording your business meeting. Since you are a regular customer, they know you meet new customers there on a weekly basis. Your schedule is clockwork, but you’re not getting any new business. Occasionally, one will sign the new contract, but will not be able to close the sale. After the first few, he begins to shift his focus, scanning books for ideas and redirection, then begins to question his decision to become an entrepreneur.
Meeting room number 2. The local restaurant has a free meeting room. You arrive early to set up your presentation only to discover that it is already in use at another meeting that is running out. By the time the staff cleans the room and refreshes it, they are 20 hours behind in their preparation and have reserved the meeting room for two hours. Guests begin to arrive and the waiter enters the room to take drink orders. He begins the presentation and they arrive with drink orders, only to start over to take appetizer and menu orders. Within 15-20 minutes they arrive with appetizers, then within 10-12 minutes they start arriving with food orders. During the time, there is a conversation taking place and the focus is on the server, not your presentation. 15-25 minutes after the food arrived, they come back to refill the drinks and start clearing the plates, only to come back to see if anyone wants dessert. Your carefully prepared 2 hour presentation hasn’t gotten all the attention it wants and less than 1/3 of the room will remember even ¼ of the presentation. The questions at the end will be skipped because they will have missed some of the critical points you focused on.
Meeting room number 3. Grocery store loft. Sunday afternoon while customers enjoy lunch. Children play in the play area while children’s music and videos play. Sure there are multiple areas to gather, but there are signs everywhere asking you to “refrain from soliciting or distributing literature, business meetings or other groups, or other conduct that may upset other customers.” For a party planning business where recognition is essential for teams, your enthusiasm may involve staff as they ask their group to refrain from making too much noise. For the customer who wants to hire you to increase their social presence, you’re inviting them to meet you at a grocery store.
Meeting room number 4. The local deli. Just grab lunch and have your business meeting. With no staff interruptions, you are responsible for clearing your dishes. Your client is paying you to help increase your business exposure, organize your time, train you for new business ideas, generate ideas, and more. Then the time when the person sitting at the next table is typing as fast as you can talk, stopping when you pause, leaning closer when you’re calmest. Your business is valuable and you just gave away a free hour to a stranger when your paying client just paid you big bucks for information that’s supposed to get you more business.
Finally, meeting room number 5. Your living room, your home office, your base. Welcome a stranger into your home. Without asking for a criminal record check, everyone has a past. Most professionals do business with legitimate entrepreneurs, however, there is always the possibility. As parents, we teach our children not to talk to strangers, but we do invite strangers into our home. If your children are home, the next courteous step would be for the children to say hello and quietly go off to play. The stranger has just found out that he has children, where is the playroom and if he has a pet and the size of the pet. There are precious family photos on the wall, your address, everything about you is exposed in the presence of someone you don’t know. The layout of your home from the moment they walk in the door unless you have a separate entrance. In business, we want to trust everyone we personally invite into our homes, but we also live in a world that isn’t as safe as we want to believe.
Free is a four letter word that can literally take away your business. When you walk into a property and take advantage of the free meeting room, there are expectations. Grocery shopping, they may say no purchase required, but they will be disappointed and start to recognize your monthly call and tell you the room is not available, especially if you’re not doing a grocery shopping. They can offer free with a minimum food purchase.
Free can be the exchange of products for the use of a meeting room. In the end, the cost is still an out-of-pocket cost to you.
Free is great until the local baseball team shows up for pizza and ice cream.
Free is the lost business that someone else won. Your public meeting has just opened the door to another competitor who just heard your price quote and information gathering is critical to your boss and paycheck.
Free does not offer you anything in return.