Fear of Free

Fear of Free
Copyright 2006 by Rosie Taveras

In today's world we've learned that 'there's no such thing as a FREE lunch'.
Although I am very much a believer of this myself, I do think that we've
grown so fearful of 'the catch' that comes with a free product or service
that we quite often miss out on some great free stuff.

Here's a little story to illustrate my point.
A few years ago I was working at a Dunkin' Donuts where a few crates of
apples were mistakenly sent to us, since the manager had all these extra
free apples he decided to give them to all the customers that made a
purchase at no extra charge. It seemed to us that it would be a nice gesture
and we began our day cheerily giving away the free apples. As the day went
on, nearly every customer asked why they were getting the apple, a few were
happy, some left the apple with no explanation; others asked if they were
rotten, many insisted that they must have been charged extra for it, and
almost everyone wanted to know what was 'the catch'. At the end of the day
we found ourselves exhausted and hoping that we never get another crate of
free apples again.

Was there 'a catch'?

Yes, there were several:
1- We had hundreds of perfectly good apples that we had gotten for free
taking up valuable space and wanted to get rid of them.
2- The manager wanted the customers to get a sense of added value to their
purchase, so that they may return to establishment.
3- We didn't want hundreds of apples to go to waste by throwing them out.

As you can see 'the catch' that most customers feared was actually a good
one. This happens quite often in the online world. Free services abound and
we often bypass them because if it's free it must not work, there must be 'a
catch', there will probably be a charge later on. While this may be true for
most offers, it can't be true for all of them.

So what can we do to take the fear out of free?

1- Read the program terms/fine print, businesses are legally obligated to
disclose all the so called 'catches' in one of these forms.
2- Determine whether you really need what is being offered.
3- Test the effectiveness of the service/product.
4- Set reminders via calendars, planners, etc. of expiration dates or
deadlines for trial services. On said date determine whether it is worth the
cost or not.
5- Most importantly, use common sense, if it seems too good to be true,
Google it. More often than not it really will be. Still, once in a while you
may get a pleasant & free surprise.

So go out there and take advantage of all the free stuff that is available
to you, and make free fun again.

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Rosie Taveras
http://www.cashandhits.com/fearoffree.html