{"id":790,"date":"2009-10-06T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=790"},"modified":"2016-09-27T14:09:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T19:09:47","slug":"what-to-charge-for-in-world-of-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2009\/10\/what-to-charge-for-in-world-of-free.html","title":{"rendered":"What to charge for in a world of Free"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>&#8220;Memorable experiences are the ultimate scarce commodity.&#8221;<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bjmccray\/3893396728\/\" title=\"Free audio version by bjmccray, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Free audio version\" height=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2497\/3893396728_83881daaa3_m.jpg\" width=\"160\"><\/a>That&#8217;s what I scribbled while driving, listening to Chris Anderson&#8217;s Free. The marginal cost of digital distribution is falling toward to cheap to measure, so it makes sense to offer many digital products for free. For example, the  Audible copy of <i>Free <\/i>I was listening came with no cost. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.longtail.com\/the_long_tail\/2009\/07\/free-for-free-first-ebook-and-audiobook-versions-released.html\">And it&#8217;s still available for download<\/a>.) <\/p>\n<p>However, the marginal cost and the value of memorable experiences continues to climb. That&#8217;s why we charge for conferences, consulting, and personal contact. A couple of days ago, Chris Brogan wrote <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrisbrogan.com\/the-audacity-of-free\/\">The Audacity of Free<\/a>, kicking off an interesting conversation in the comments. <\/p>\n<p>Drawing the line between free and paid is a continuing discussion point here. Most recently, we had a great comment thread on <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2009\/07\/what-do-you-do-when-prospect-stands-you.html\">what to do when a prospect stands you up<\/a>. The first response from a reader? Never do a free consult. Maybe not practical in small towns, but certainly an interesting discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me back to the opening quote.<\/p>\n<p><b>&#8220;Memorable experiences are the ultimate scarce commodity.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s what we can charge for. That&#8217;s the heart and soul of tourism. That&#8217;s what drives customers to return to your small business. Memorable experiences.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>How do you generate memorable experiences?\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p><b>Update: <\/b>I&#8217;ve created a toolkit, called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tourismcurrents.com\/how-to-draw-the-line-between-free-and-paid\">How to Draw the Line Between Free and Paid<\/a>, to help get past doing too much for free.<\/p>\n<p><i>New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/05\/tour-of-small-biz-survival_29.html\"> Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/get-updates.html\">Get our updates<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Memorable experiences are the ultimate scarce commodity.&#8221; That&#8217;s what I scribbled while driving, listening to Chris Anderson&#8217;s Free. The marginal cost of digital distribution is falling toward to cheap to measure, so it makes sense to offer many digital products for free. For example, the Audible copy of Free I was listening came with no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4,3,7],"tags":[104],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7606,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/7606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}