[Note: This article is part 1b of 4 in the series “4 Principles I Never Break As A Practitioner”. In this series I am discussing four of the fundamental principles I never break in running my business. A new article will be added to the site every two or three weeks. You can read the full series and you can check out all the free practitioner resources.]

photo by Kevin Dooley

In part 1a of this series we looked at all of the reasons to give something away for free. In this part we are going to look at what you have to offer for free and type of impact each of these things will have.

There are few things to keep in mind when giving things away for free. We need to look at how much money something will cost us, how much time it will cost us, how many people we are going to reach, and what is the level of impact the give away is going to have.

1) Financial Cost
This is the easiest for figure out. Because my web server is a fixed cost it costs me nothing to offer free digital product (like audio and e-book downloads), articles, and podcasts. When I am doing live presentations or at health fairs I give free instruction and tap along CDs away. Because I already own a computer it costs me very little to produce these CDs. I only need to buy the blank CDs and envelops to put them in. I know a practitioner who gives away books instead of business cards. This cost a few dollars each for the book printing. I have given away $5 gift cards to Starbucks and ColdStone as part of promotions.

2) Time
With the exception of buying something to give away (like gift cards) everything we give away is going to cost some time. It takes time to write articles, record audios, give a free presentation, and work with someone one-on-one. Often times we don't think about this as an expense, but we only have limited amount of time each day. When we are giving something away for free we need to consider how much time it is going to cost us.

3) The Number Of People It Is Going To Reach
Everything we give away is going to have different number of people it can reach or will reach. When I put something on line the possible reach is anyone who makes it to my web site. (Note: Just because it can reach millions on -line doesn't mean it will reach millions.) When I am doing a live demonstration I could be reaching between 10 and 100 people. When I am giving away one-on-one session I am only reaching the person I am working with.

4) Impact Of The Give Away
Not all free things are created equal. The impact of a free audio is going to differ greatly from working with someone one-on-one because the one-on-one session is going to be much more personal than a general weight release audio. Giving a free book to someone is going to have a bigger impact than giving a business card.

Formula
So there is not hard and fast rule for how to figure this out, but you going to want to consider all these factors these factors when you are considering the types of giveaways you are going to do. Obviously the higher the cost (time and money) the higher the impact you are going to want. Let take a look at three examples.

1) Articles
It only costs me 1 hour to 90 minutes and no money (minus the coffee I consume while writing it) to create and publish a new article on my web site. The reach of this article can be very large (based on the number of people we are visiting my site). As time passes, the more regular readers I have the larger the reach of each article has. The impact of the article on an individual reader is relatively low.

As an extra bonus the article will live on my site forever. This allows readers to find it through web searches for years to come. As an added bonus, often times I receive a question from a reader about something I have already written about. I can give them a personal and immediate answer to their questions by sending them the link to the article with a note that reads, “Check this link out and let me know what further questions you have on the topic.

The goal of the article is to continue to build my reputation and relationship with my readers. From time to time one of my articles is going to go viral. Someone else will really like the article and share it with their readers expanding the reach, but I have no control over this factor. Also, it might only happen one in every twenty articles.

The cost is relatively low, the impact is relatively low, and the reach is large.

2) Podcast
Podcast are very similar to articles with a few exceptions. It costs me about 4 to 5 hours and no money to create one episode of the Tapping/EFT Q and A podcast between setting up the interviews, doing the interviews, creating the webpage, and editing the podcast.

The impact of the podcast is higher than that of an article. First, people hear my voice and feel like they know me more than when they read my stuff helping to build my reputation more.

Second, the podcast market is much less crowded at this point. If you search “EFT” in google my web site isn't in the first 300 search results. If you search “EFT podcast” I am on the first page of search results. If you search “EFT” in iTunes I am in the first 10 results. I will grant that many fewer people are looking for podcasts than just tapping information, but when I did my survey of readers in March almost 20 percent of respondent said they found my site because of searching in iTunes.

Third, many of the podcasts I do are interviews with other people who have mailing lists and website. Many of the people I have interviewed in the past shared a link to the podcast with their reads helping to spread my site to their readers.

Like articles, I have the benefit of having the podcast on my site for all time allowing people to find them through search engines and I can send people to podcasts when they have a specific question. (I send the link to my podcast on surrogate tapping on average of once a day.)

The cost in time is higher, the impact is higher, and the reach is smaller.

3) Free One-On-One Session
Between setting-up the session, my pre-session prep, post-session follow up, and the session itself it cost me about 1h and 45min to do one-on-one session.

There is another cost with a one-on-one session that we haven't talked about yet and that is energy. In comparison to content creation it costs me more energy to do a session with a client. There is a limit to the number of sessions that I can do in one day and I need to have certain energy level to start a session. This is just one more cost to keep in mind.

When you work with someone one-on-one you they are not only getting a chance to see how you work but they are also feeling the transformation in their own life. Almost every free session I have done (since creating my free session follow up process) has turned into a testimonial and many of these free sessions have turned into paying clients. Some have turned in to clients whom I have worked with on and off with for years.

The cost in time is high, the impact is very high, and the reach is very small.

No Hard And Fast Rules
As you can see each type of give away has it pluses and minuses based on cost and benefit. I would also recommend that you don't put all your egg in one basket. I have created a whole portfolio of free things. Some of them are things that I do regularly (articles, podcasts) while other are one-off giveaways for a very specific reason (10 one-on-one session as part of getting people to take the survey).

There is no right or wrong way to do this. And as your practice grows the math of the formula is going to change. As your website traffic grows it costs you less to create an article in compared to the impact.

If it takes me one hour to write an article and 10 people read it then I spend 6 min a person for that article, but if 60 people read it then it only cost me 1 min a person. The cost is the same but impact has improved six fold.

Also, not all strategies are right for all people. I recently interviewed a practitioner who is really good at speaking, but writing an article is like pulling teeth. It is going to cost her very little to give a free presentation, but it is going to be “painful” (her words) to write an article.

It is best to find what works for you, but to do this it is going to cost you. In the beginning it is going to cost you your time (what is often referred to as sweat equity). One of the benefits of giving something away for free is learning people don't want this particular free offering. The key is to know why you are giving something away and see if you are meeting your goals with that give away.

In part 1c we will look at how I use free information and services in my practice.

Note: Gene enjoys helping new practitioners build their practice and current practitioners grown there practice. Let Gene know if you would like to chat about how he could help your practice today. (And yes, the consultation is free)]

[Note: This article is part 1a of 4 in the series “4 Principles I Never Break As A Practitioner”. In this series I am discussing four of the fundamental principles I never break in running my business. A new article will be added to the site every two or three weeks. You can read the full series and you can check out all the free practitioner resources.]

photo by Patrick Haney

Giving stuff away for free can be a tricky thing to do as a practitioner. On one hand it feels like a good idea because we are exposing potential clients to our products and services. On the other hand we can worry that if we give too much away potential clients are only going to take the free things and never buy.

Giving products and services away for free is a very key part of my business and marketing plan, but it needs to be more than “give it away and hope.” Every time we are giving something away for free (products, services, or our time) we need to be doing for a very specific reason. We need to be giving away for free with a plan.

There are a number of reasons to give things away. Every time I give something away for free it meets at least one of the following reasons. In many cases it meets more.

1) Because It Is A Good Thing To Do
I don't want to reduce giving away good and services to a simple transaction. We are going to talk about a number of things that we get back from free, but there are times when giving is a good thing to do because it is a good thing to do.

There are a number of places that I use my gifts and talents for people I love, people who can't afford my stuff, and places that have a soft spot in my heart. There is some much good that comes out of doing something simply as an act of love.

BUT, and this is a big but, it is very important that you keep this part of your life and your practice in balance. There are only so many hours in the day and there is only so much energy that you have to share with others. If you are not taking care of your own well-being by doing too much work you are going to be no good to anyone. If you are not getting paid for what you do then you are going to need to find another job.

This is a major pit fall for many people in the care-taking fields. We see the suffering of others and know that we can help. How can we possibly say “no”? It is great to help others, but not at the risk of hurting ourselves.

One of the ways I deal with this balance is I have decided there are a certain number of hours of my time I give away. This does two things. First, it challenges me to reach out to others when it is very easy to get lost in my own stuff. Second, it helps me keep balance and not give too much of my time to the detriment to the rest of my life.

2) To Get Experience
The art of delivery is a skill. Just because you know the Emotional Freedom Techniques(EFT)/tapping points and a few techniques it does not mean that you are equipped to run a full time practice. We need practice at our skills. I hope I am much better helping clients than I was a few years ago.

It is a great idea when you are getting ready to starting a practice to decide that over the course of two months you are going to do 20 free sessions as a way of improving your skills. It is important to be up front with your clients that you are newer to the skill set, but this won't deter people. Lots of people are willing to go to barber schools, dental schools, and massage schools for free and discounted work.

As a side note: I also believe that it is really important that you are getting supervision from an experienced practitioner while you are doing this sort of work. It is one thing to spend time with clients, it is something much more to be able to talk through your sessions to see what you could do better in the future.

After each session you are doing to improve your skills I would take a few minutes to review the session. What are the things you did well? What are the things you could improve in the future? You don't get better by accident. You need to plan for your success.

3) To Help Determine If It Is A Good Match
Lots of practitioners will give a free 20min consultation. It is nice to know that if you found a practitioner on-line that you can chat with them to see if your personalities and approaches are going to match, but this is a two way street. This is also an opportunity to see if they are the right clients for you.

I know that if you are just starting out that it is hard to believe that you would ever turn business away, but it is true. There are lots of clients who would be willing to pay you money but are more of a headache than they are worth. Personally, I only want to be working with clients who want to get better. I have encountered clients who are just looking for someone to reaffirm the fact that they are wounded and have no desire to heal. I don't have the time or energy for this in my practice. This will come with experience, but you will start to understand what clients are going to be more trouble than they are worth.

Also, you might get to the point in your practice where you decided to specialize in one area (weight release, children, business) and you will realize that people would be served better somewhere else. There is a practitioner that refers people to me all the time because she wants to be doing only one type of work and she knows I am more of a generalist.

4) To Get Testimonials
One of the great bonuses of living in the modern world is that anyone can communicate with anyone else almost any where in the world. One of the great struggles of the modern world is that anyone can communicate with anyone else almost any where in the world.

There is so much noise out there. You need to find a way to stand out in the crowd. One of the great ways to stand out is having people you worked with talk about their experience. I recently added a client who specifically mentioned the testimonials on my website as a reason she contacted me. It is one thing to say that you are good; it is something else when others say it.

Every time you do a presentation, teach a class, or work with someone one-on-one ask them for a testimonial. When I ask for a testimonial I explain why it is so important to my business and ask them if they are willing to write one for me. I give them the opportunity to put their name on it or keep it anonymous. I also provide them samples of what others have written so they can see what I am looking for. (Here are some of the testimonials I have received.)

5) Introduce Yourself, Your Personality, And Your Competency
When you are giving something away for free (be it a session or information like an article) it gives you a chance to let possible clients know who you are. I mean this more than just being able to put your name with your face, but instead to get a real understanding of who you are.

Tapping Q and A is a very personal web site. I don't spend a great deal of time talking about myself, but if you have been reading this for a while or listening to the podcast you have a sense of who I am. You know what I am passionate about. You can get a sense of how I see the healing process. You can see if I know what I am talking about.

I received a great complement from a client recently. At the end of our first session working together he said, “That felt like our second session because I felt like I knew you from your site and podcast.”

6) To Build A Relationship
Some people aren't ready to sign up for a session when they first encounter you. At first they might be very hesitant because they are new to tapping, they aren't able to afford a session, or they don't ye realize they need outside help yet. I have readers who are on my list for as much as two years before they are ready to do a session with me.

Because I am a presents in their lives by providing a stream of free information to them when it comes time for them to choose a practitioner I am at the front of their minds.

Also, when we build a long-term relationship with people we then have permission to sell things to them. I don't send a lot of sales letter to my list, but I do send them. Most of the times they are very well received because my readers what to hear from me because of the relationship we have. I am not forcing my way into there life with “BUY! BUY! BUY!” but I am already there and this time I happen to have something for sale.

I knew that I had cultivated a good relationship with my readers when I received an email that read, “Can you please start selling things so I can buy them.”

7) To Give Another Offer For A Sale
Many times after I have given something away for free I will then offer something for sales. Because of the law of reciprocity people are going to feel compelled to listen to your pitch because you have just given them something for free.

8) To Get Information
In March I did a comprehensive survey of my readers. I learned some amazing things. I received a lot of great article topics and realized a number of areas that I could be serving with my work. This article series you are reading right now is based on the fact I had some many readers ask for practice building ideas and information. Basically, I traded digital goods and free sessions for valuable information.

Conclusion
Every choice you make should be made for a reason. The more mindful we are of our choices the more likely we are going to find success. When you are giving things away for free do it for a reason. In part 1b of this series I will explain the types of products, services, and information that you can give away for free.

Note: Gene enjoys helping new practitioners build their practice and current practitioners grown there practice. Let Gene know if you would like to chat about how he could help your practice today. (And yes, the consultation is free)]