Alot of us are good at receiving payment for services or products. We’re good at getting new clients and getting the work done. But how often do you give something away? I remember I think it was Ed that said to keep an expense account of sorts for your clients of all the extra free things you do for them. Then at the end of the year give them an invoice and say it’s already paid. I love that!
Another way to nurture your business is to do a giveaway, it helps your relationship grow AND people will become more loyal to your business. My good friend Kelly McCausey hosts a WAHM Christmas Wish every single year. She reinforces her kindness and Christmas Spirit every year due to this wish list. She has work at home moms submit their wishes and then she does her best to fulfill each wish. I love that she does this!
Well this year one of the wishes were for Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Program. Kelly shot me an email and asked if I could ask Yaro for her to fulfill the wish. Of course I whole heartedly said Yes and emailed Yaro. I was thrilled that Yaro took the time and gave his entire program FREE to Angie Newton. Thank you Kelly for the great idea you had to do Christmas Wishes each year, and thanks to Yaro for your kindess and giving your program away for free.
There were also more wishes that were granted and I was happy to see others giving something away to Moms who work hard to be home with their kids… And in the spirit of giving, I’ll be glad to give away a little something here also for Christmas. THAT will come in my next blog post. 🙂
YES Vera, there is a Santa Claus!
How does she choose who to give the wish to? Or is it the wish maker that is also the recipient? What is the process she uses to determine who’s chimney Santa Kelly climbs down this year?
This is so clever.
From what I understand Kelly has everyone submit their wishes, and she just goes down her list trying to fill every single one of them. 🙂 I love Kelly, and she’s a brilliant marketer as well.
Interesting perspective on a difficult issue – it is easy to spend numerous hours supporting your customers spending 2 minutes per answer which is hard to invoice and how do you get “credit” for that.
However, at the same time I think one should think about the signal that you send to your customers by doing this. If you signalize that calling you all the time without paying for the support is accepted, why not call every time you have a problem 🙂 In my part of the world (Denmark, Europe), I think that it is really important to show that the offer I send to my customers is not open for negotiation unless they are willing to skip some of the things they asked me to deliver – If I am worth the money I know I am worth the money. Do you know what I mean?
Steen
I just got a Google Alert for my name and your blog post came up. I want to thank you very much for helping make my wish come true. I’m very excited about Blog Mastermind. You ladies are just wonderful. Happy Holiday’s!
That sounds like a full time job right there.
Good for her.
Steen – I think it was more for all the little extra’s that you do. But of course those can add up as well. I see your point about maybe they’ll start to expect that kind of service from you, but at the same time… don’t we want to overdeliver to our clients? I sure do. I also think if you have a client that wants to overrun your time, it’s time to let them go and find clients that respect us for the professionals that we are.
Angie – I’m so happy to have been a part of your gift, it’s a great program! Yaro is also very easy to learn from and actually apply the work that he tells you to do. Merry Christmas!
Ed – Yes I’m sure it takes alot of her time but the extra effort just shows the great person that she is.
Vera, thanks for sharing about the WAHM Wish!
Ed, it was a full time job for about a week – but the fun of facilitating the wishes is addictive LOL! Next year though – I’m going to do things a bit differently so that we can fulfill more wishes over a longer period of time without me having to take a complete vacation from the rest of my business 😉
I did try to fulfill every clear wish but with five wishes for a new laptop I did have to do some prioritizing based on what I thought I could facilitate in a week’s time. Who knows? Maybe next year we will give a laptop away?
How I wish I’d known about this wonderful WAHM before. I am work-at-home mom ever since I gave birth to my third and last child. Leaving the house to go to work for 5 days a week had been a harrowing experience for me and my kids until I decided to stay at home and take care of them myself. As a small business owner (I cook and sell foods mostly to neighbors and relatives) I always try to keep track of all the loyal customers so that I’ll be able to give ‘discounts’ through doubling an item the next time they buy. Their smiles of thanks always make me feel light. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts.
Merry Christmas!
Rose – She’s an outstanding woman and I’m thrilled that she does this every year. You’ll certainly gain alot of guidance by following Kelly at her site there.
Trent – Merry Christmas to you as well! and Happy New Year!
I have been working on this for a while on my blog, still trying to decide what to give away, there are so many options.