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To benchmark or not to benchmark…?

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I have been thinking a bit lately about using benchmarking in conjunction with Give Freely Receive Freely offerings.  This could potentially address a number of challenges people have with GFRF.

Challenges

Perception of value

One of the challenges with GFRF in this status driven, money oriented, marketing focused, accumulation crazy, money centric society we live in is that a lot of the time people take price as an indication of quality or value of something that is offered.  All too often price is an entirely inadequate indicator, but nonetheless it is there deeply rooted in a lot of peoples psyches.

With this deeply entrenched thinking, when people encounter something which they can have for ‘free’ (GFRF), unfortunately I think many of them assume a lower quality or value is being offered.  This can lead them to not take full advantage of what is being offered – instead going for something that has a price that matches their expectations of the value they wish to receive.

I think with time and exposure people can overcome this bias as they realize that just because they can get what is offered for free, this does not equate to low quality or value.  In fact GFRF provides the ultimate conceptual counterbalance to this perception – there is no upper limit to what you can choose to pay (give in return) for something received on a GFRF basis either.  In a way I think over time this could lead to perception of higher value for GFRF offerings than offerings with set prices because the offerer is also giving you something else – Freedom to assign value as you see fit.  What price do you put on freedom in any of its forms?  I think it is very valuable.

But still, this shift requires a change from what is the predominant mode of current thinking and having a benchmark price can give a receiver a starting point in determining value.  They still then have the freedom to choose to assign a different value to it outside of the benchmark indication if they wish.

Input costs

This leads to another challenge with GFRF that benchmarking can address.  A customer (receiver) generally does not have a full appreciation of the cost of the inputs involved in providing what they receive (rent, labour, materials, R&D, taxes, administration, communications etc etc), so they don’t know if what they pay for it will even cover the cost of provision or whether it may actually cover the costs many times over.

Benchmarking can address this by giving an indication of an exchange level that covers the givers costs and provides them with what they need to be able to comfortably continue providing what they offer.  Receivers can still choose to give less or more than this according to their personal circumstances and their desire to provide additional support, see the venture grow and expand, express gratitude etc.

Freedom discomfort

In my experience a lot of people like the idea of GFRF, but when confronted with actually doing it find it very uncomfortable – perhaps due to some of the reasons discussed above.  They don’t want to rip off the person giving to them but don’t know how to assign a value to what they have received without some kind of external direction.  In the end I usually help these people out by giving them some kind of idea of what I used to charge when I had set prices, what other people charge for similar services etc.

A benchmark would probably help these people to come to a price point they are comfortable with a lot more quickly and easily, but this then leads into some of the downsides of having a benchmark for GFRF offerings.

Less engagement required

By giving someone a benchmark price they no longer have to think as much about what has gone into what they have received, they no longer have to think as much about the welfare of the person or people they have received from, basically if they want to they can just take things on face value and go back to thinking more about themselves and less about others.

I think overall this leads to less understanding, care, compassion and to use a cliched term – ‘connection’ between parties to the exchange.  It is easier for people to be wrapped up in their own world, selfish and self centred because they are not required to put as much thought into their interactions with others.

Of course just because there is a benchmark doesn’t mean people will think/act in this way, just as with set prices people don’t always think/act in this way.  But the thought required to decide for yourself what or how much you will give to someone else in return for what they provide you acts as a great prompt for people to think in a caring, compassionate way for the people around them.  I think this benefit is weakened by having a benchmark in place.

Intrinsic Value Identification

In my mind this is probably the biggest downside to having a benchmark.  People don’t have the same level of stimulus to identify and appreciate the intrinsic value of something. It becomes much easier for them to rely on an externally imposed indicator of value and assign their own internal value and appreciation accordingly.

I think many of us do not come close to fully appreciating so many of the most valuable things in our lives.  The people we love and have close relationships with.  Nature and the environment (a beautiful sunrise, clean air, fresh water, trees, etc).  Freedom to act, think, change and grow.

These things are FREE yet have infinite value.  Also while being FREE, they are not without cost.  Relations require time, people require communication and support, our environment requires that we take care not to destroy it, our freedoms have been defended repeatedly with the lives of soldiers fighting those who would control us.

We can’t really assign a price to these things.  Money may be involved in supporting and protecting  them, but it does not represent their value.  Somehow putting a price in dollar terms on these sorts of things cheapens them and causes us to miss their true value.  One of the big problems in our world today is people focusing so much on money and what they can get for it that they do not appreciate or make full use of what they already have.

Similarly having a benchmark is putting a dollar value on what is offered – and I think can take the mind away from understanding and appreciating the true value received, regardless of money being exchanged to support the provision of the offering.

Less Freedom

Basically putting a monetary value on what is offered makes the whole exchange less free.  People are inclined to base their value perception and exchange behaviour around the indicated value even if they don’t have to because it is a benchmark rather than a set price.  The fact that a number has been put on it causes them to begin to think in a certain way about it relative to the benchmark.

In essence the canvas for the exchange is no longer blank it has a mark on it that participates are likely to evaluate things in relationship to.  They no longer have full freedom to determine and define their own parameters.

This can lead to them feeling inadequate or ‘cheap’ if they pay less than the benchmark, and conversely it may restrict them from giving as much as they would like because they don’t want to overpay too much above what something has been deemed to be worth.

Much as with the other downsides discussed, having a benchmark doesn’t necessarily mean people will behave in this way.  They can still choose to do what they like, even with a benchmark they have great freedom in the exchange under GFRF. The situation just doesn’t encourage the same level of freedom. Essentially to obtain it they have to first ‘paint over’ the established benchmark on the ‘blank canvas’ so that it does not influence their own thinking and perceptions.  It is one more step to full freedom in their own mind which most people won’t take, most people will leave the benchmark there and evaluate in relationship to it.

Does the idea have merit?

In the end I think the idea of benchmarking alongside GFRF offerings is not ideal, but does have merit.  It makes the idea of choosing your own price for exchange more accessible to many people so that they will feel more comfortable doing it.  It could act as an entry point to GFRF for people, and once they get comfortable with GFRF with a benchmark they might be able to move on to a more ideal type of GFRF exchange without benchmarks – much like taking the training wheels off a bike.

I know that many people struggle with the practicality of GFRF exchange, even if they like the concept, and having an easier version for them could be a good way to start them experimenting in exchanging in this way.

Someone who attended one of my qigong workshops recently told me about her experience with a cafe in Auckland that used to operate ‘gift-economy’ (very similar to GFRF).  She said much as she liked the idea she couldn’t bring herself to go in and eat there because she didn’t know how to come up with a price.  Now that cafe no longer operates on ‘gift-economy’ it has set prices, probably because lots of other people were also uncomfortable exchanging in that way without reference point.  Benchmarking could have been some intermediate ground that might have worked and encouraged their ‘gift-economy’ principle to grow.

A friend of mine who is a lawyer operates in a way similar to this (yes a lawyer with a heart and conscience… they do exist).  His firm tells their clients what their full chargeout price for work is, but because they work with a lot of startups recognizes that they may not be able to pay the full price and allows them to come up with a price they can afford.  In this way they allow the client to use their services at a price they can afford, without the client perceiving those services as lower quality due to the lower cost.  The expectation is set that when the client can afford to pay more they will come up to the full pricing.  This helps the law firm earn the money that it needs across different clients and avoids clients jumping ship to another more expensive firm due to perceiving the lower cost services they have received as lower value.

It is a practical solution that also allows compassion, and one that I respect greatly.

Scale of GFRF approaches

Practicality is important, great ideas are only valuable if you can actually get them to work.  Along these lines I think there is a scale of ways that GFRF can be implemented according what is most ideal vs what is most practical/workable.  That scale probably looks something like this:

(Underground GFRF is another idea I’m toying with, I wrote about it in this post here)

I think that moving at least some way up the scale is preferable to staying stuck at conventional pricing.

Implementing a Benchmark

There are several ways you could go about setting benchmarks if you chose to.

  1. The pie in the sky method.  This is where you set a ridiculously high price on what you are offering, thus increasing the receiver’s expectation of what they should pay for it in the hopes that they will feel good about paying a reasonable price and that they have actually got far more value than this.  This has been used extensively in high pressure sales environments, particularly infomercials and internet infoproducts.  I guess they use these strategies because they have found that they work, but I feel like they are intellectually dishonest (why exactly are they selling you something of ‘over $5000 value‘ for the ‘low today only price of $27‘ again?).
  2. The competitive market approach.  This would involve comparing the prices that others in the market offer similar goods or services for and pricing according to the relative quality of what you offer.
  3. The cost plus approach.  This would involve adding up the total cost of providing what you do and then adding a margin so that you can make some kind of profit.
  4. The end result approach.  This would be where you decide how much you would like to earn and how many goods/how much service you are comfortably able to offer and divide the end sum by this to come up with unit pricing.
These are a few methods you could use to come up with a benchmark to use.  Each has  things in its favor and against it.  I think I would be inclined to use a mix of methods 2. 3. and 4. to set a realistic benchmark and have faith that what is received comes out somewhere in that ballpark – with some paying more and others paying less, rather than setting an unrealistic benchmark to allow for people to consistently pay less than the benchmark.

The Decision…

So back to the question of whether to benchmark or not to benchmark.

I can see it as possibly being useful.  I know that in the past I have tended to set my prices too low, I think I have tried to price for the lowest common denominator to make what I offer as affordable as possible for everyone.  But this has meant that I have not always been able to offer the level of service I would like too due to having insufficient resources.  It has also sometimes led to a lower perception of value – which can be very frustrating, knowing that often you are actually providing something of better quality than someone else charging several times your price and having people perceive the value based on the price rather than what is actually received.

Benchmarking could address some of these issues by giving people a pricing indicator in line with the quality offered while allowing those who can’t afford that to still pay what they can afford to receive the service.  I prefer the purity of straight GFRF though.  I think there are additional benefits to this that you don’t get with a benchmark.

I don’t know at this point if I will use benchmarking with my GFRF, but it is another useful  compromise approach that I could use if needed as I continue to experiment with GFRF.

 

What is Charity Really?

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First Impressions of Charity

What comes to mind when you think of ‘Charity’?  I think for a lot of us it is things like people in the street collecting money to feed starving orphans in a far of land, or maybe someone calling you on the phone asking you to donate money to help re-home abandoned animals.  Closer to home you may think of things like raising money for your local sports club to help fund building of new facilities, or equipment for youth teams.  Closer still you might think of acts of service like cooking a meal for sick neighbour.

A lot of wonderful things are done in the name of ‘Charity’, but I know for many of us ‘Charity’ brings up feelings that are not entirely positive.  Negative connotations have somehow also become attached to this inherently good thing.

Why is ‘Charity’ Sometimes a Dirty Word?

I think there are a number of reasons why Charity sometimes gets a bad reputation in our modern society.  They come from what I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of what charity really is.  I would like to look at some of these distortions before discussing a deeper understanding of the meaning of Charity.

Big Business

One of the things that sometimes sours peoples attitude to Charity is the practices of organizations and people that acquire funding on their behalf.  They can be very persistent and irritating to the point where people feel they are giving not so much out of the goodness of their hearts but because they have been hounded and they just want to get rid of the person.

Then there is the case of the new breed of collectors who will approach people to donate, but then will not accept their offered cash donation because what they are after is a contract for a donation by monthly direct debit.  These are usually PROFESSIONAL collectors and they and the organization they work for are paid on commision and these commissions can be high – up to 100% of your entire first years worth of donations.  That money you thought was going to your preferred cause may actually be going directly into the pocket of the collector and helping to fund even more pesky collectors.  (See this article in the New Zealand Herald about Charity fundraising)

If some of your donated money does manage to get through to your supported organization, then more of that money is used for ongoing marketing and to pay administrative and staffing costs – which can be high, before finally some of it may get to the purpose you wanted to contribute too.

The reality is that Charity has become big business, and like other big businesses they will try to squeeze every dollar they can out of their audience – even if it sometimes means annoying and hounding them.  And also like any business, many people enter the sector with an eye to how much they can get for themselves personally while working there rather than what they can contribute.

This doesn’t mean that all large charitable organizations and their employees operate like this.  I am sure that there are many who do great work in a highly ethical way, but the fact that some do can leave people feeling taken advantage of and suspicious about giving to any cause.  There are ways around this which we will get to later on in this post.

Dependency And Weakness

Another aspect of the common conception of Charity that sometimes gives it a bad name is the idea that Charity is a hand out.  Something for nothing.  A lot of people instinctively dislike this idea, and I think for good reason.  Sadly when people regularly get something for nothing they often become dependent on these hand outs and rather than helping these people to lead better lives it can make them weak and unable to take care of themselves.

This causes people to not want to give to charities because they don’t want to be contributing to a handout mentality which creates dependency and weakness in the recipients.  It also makes people not want to receive from charity as this would indicate weakness on their part.  Almost no-one wants to be considered a ‘charity case’ as the implication of weakness damages peoples sense of self esteem and sense of worth.

What is Charity Really?

So we can see a few issues with Charity as it is often thought of and practiced in our society today.  There is bad mixed with good, and this can cause people to have understandably mixed feelings and attitudes towards it.  Do we have to accept the bad with the good though? Or can we find another understanding of Charity which is only good, that there is no need to have mixed feelings about, something that we would like to do all the time without hesitation because there is no downside?

Pure Love

Out of interest I looked up a dictionary definition of Charity for reference.  Here is the definition I found at www.thefreedictionary.com

______________________________________________________________________

char·i·ty  (chr-t)

n. pl. char·i·ties

1. Provision of help or relief to the poor; almsgiving.
2. Something given to help the needy; alms.
3. An institution, organization, or fund established to help the needy.
4. Benevolence or generosity toward others or toward humanity.
5. Indulgence or forbearance in judging others. See Synonyms at mercy.
6. often Charity Christianity The theological virtue defined as love directed first toward God but also toward oneself and one’s neighbors as objects of God’s love.
[Middle English charite, from Old French, Christian love, from Latin crits, affection, from crus, dear; see k- in Indo-European roots.]

______________________________________________________________________

Looking at this definition we can see that the first three items refer pretty much to what we have been discussing in this post so far, but as we go further down the list I think we start to get closer to a true understanding of what Charity really is.

Charity at its essence is PURE LOVE, the giving and institutions referred to in the first three items of the definition and the earlier part of this blog post are simply imperfect human expressions of this love.  By digging deeper to find the true meaning of Charity we can find better ways of expressing it.

We All Need Charity

As we come closer to understanding the deeper meaning of Charity, it quickly becomes apparent that Charity actually affects all areas of our lives and there is no shame whatsoever in receiving it.  All of us can benefit from benevolence and generosity (item four in the definition) and forbearance in judgement (item five) from time to time.  At our core, all of us need to love and be loved.

Charity is not just something for the poor but an inner attitude that is expressed in all of our interactions with the people and the world around us.

Integrating Charity Into Our Lives

So how do we best express this PURE LOVE in our interactions with others?  Well, people are going to have different ways of doing this and the giving and institutions mentioned earlier can sometimes be a good way.  But there are lots of other ways to do this as well that I think can often hit their mark a bit more accurately.  I found this interesting post on Freakonomics that shares one guys ideas of how to effectively express charity in your local community (read it here).  Basically there are many opportunities around us in our local communities where we can express charity effectively.

Give Freely Receive Freely and Charity

For myself, I think it is a shame to reserve our expressions of Charity to special instances of giving.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could incorporate this pure love into every interaction we engage in, including our day to day business?

I think ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ has potential to do this quite well.  It allows us to provide what we do directly to those people who want or need it.  When we do this we are making no judgement as to whether someone is rich or poor or a ‘charity case’, because we expect them to give in return what they can or are willing to for what we have provided.  We respect their contribution whether great or small, and in so doing encourage them to respect themselves and to continue to make the effort to contribute what they can in return for what they receive and in so doing contribute to the greater good of society.

This giving is very efficient as we can provide what we do best (you do work at what you do best don’t you?) to those most in need (rich or poor) without having to deal with any additional costly marketing and administrative structures to facilitate the giving.  It is just part of our day to day activity and business.

As we give in this way it also makes us very aware of our own need to receive, because if we do not we receive we are unable to take care of our own needs let alone continue to give to others.  It breaks down our barriers to receiving graciously.  In short it encourages us to be more liberal in both our giving and receiving of love.

My experiment with GFRF has been interesting so far.  I can’t say it has been a resounding success, but it hasn’t been a failure yet either.  It has helped me to see the potential of interacting in this way and it has helped me to learn more about myself and how I view others and the world.  My experience so far encourages me to keep trying.  I am just new at this and to be perfectly honest I am probably not very good at giving freely yet, I am also probably not very good at receiving freely either.  The receiving really is a challenge, I find that it takes a lot of trust to give not knowing what you will receive in return. It also takes a lot of humility to receive what is given.

I think that little by little GFRF is helping me to change for the better.  It encourages me to give more, receive more, love more and trust more.  As I keep experimenting I expect that I will learn a lot more both about myself and about how to give and receive freely and effectively.

I hope that you will continue to follow along on this journey.

 

 

 

 

Service Space

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I came across this website this morning and thought I would share it: http://www.servicespace.org/about/ 

I have only had time to have a little look around the site so far, so I can’t say I fully understand every aspect of what they are doing, but on the surface there seems to be a number of similarities to Give Freely Receive Freely, and a number of differences too.

Similarities are that things are given freely, and there is an emphasis on personal change through this process.  Differences are that these seem to be collectively organised projects with an emphasis on just the giving side of the equation without attention to the receiving side.  This is reflected in their previous name ‘CharityFocus’.  the projects seem to be run by ‘volunteers’  ie, their involvement in the projects is a special act of service – not how they earn their living.

I think my interest is more in finding out if we can integrate these principles of giving and receiving so fully into our lives that this is how we earn our living, these acts not being something special that we do with part of our time, but the way we live our entire lives.

Differences aside, it is interesting to see other people working with these types of ideas and finding their own way to live in a more compassionate way.  I guess the differences also spark a desire in me to write some more of the blog posts I have been thinking about but haven’t quite got to writing yet to more fully explain aspects of Give Freely Receive Freely.  These include topics such as what is charity really, and how do we integrate it into our lives, and the importance of balancing the give and receive sides of the equation.

Servicespace also have an ‘inspiration’ page with stories of kindness and good news.  This is similar to another idea that I had awhile ago of having a website dedicated entirely to good news, so its nice to see they have started something along those lines.

My first GFRF product offering

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My first experiment with offering a physical product GFRF is now live.  I haven’t offered physical products GFRF previously due to the fixed cost of the products.  If a lot of people bought the products at or below what it cost me to supply them… well I would quickly run into financial trouble.  Its a bridge I wanted to cross at some point though, so today I have taken that step.

The product is an ‘Acupuncture Massage Ring’ and has been really popular in the past when I have sold them for $8.95 each.  It will be really interesting to see how people respond to paying what the want for them.  I figure now is a good time to get the product online as Christmas is coming and people will be looking for gifts soon.

I am not entirely sure how I will promote the offer, probably just on facebook and via my websites, but it is now up on a new page of the GFRF website – the ‘Shop’.  If this is successful I will look to adding additional products in the future.  Also if anyone else has products they would like to offer GFRF, maybe I will be able to include them on the Shop page as well, or at least link to your own website with the offer.  The offer must be truly GFRF though with no strings attached, not something that is just an intro to try and get someone to buy something else at a fixed price.

Anyway, at some point in the future I will report back on how this experiment with GFRF physical goods goes.

Give Freely Receive Freely Goes Underground!

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Ok, so this is my next step in experimenting with Give Freely Receive Freely.  I am planning on offering more of my services on a GFRF basis, but only to those who ask for it.  For other customers/clients/students there will be set prices.

What had led me to try this?

For most people GFRF is a very unusual idea, so much so that they find it very confronting to have to deal with.  This can be offputting and cause them to be uncomfortable with the interaction and shy away from using a product or service.  I believe that there is real value in the things that I offer and I don’t want people to miss out on those benefits because they are uncomfortable with the payment method.  Also my aim is not to be confrontational but to share an idea and way of exchanging with people that I think has potential to be hugely beneficial both to the individuals involved and society as a whole, but at the moment some people get it and others just don’t.

Also, I recently had a telephone conversation with Ian from Northriver (the horse and humanship training centre listed in the directory) and one of the things we discussed was that one part of their payment policy is that the client must make the payment face to face.  I think this increases the connection between giver and receiver and helps to make sure that the client has some level of internal reflection on the value of what they have received so that they are comfortable with the payment they give in return for it.  I think this is a powerful idea with many benefits, but not one that I feel I am able to implement with all of my services at the moment.  In particular this would be difficult with my junior Kung Fu classes as I do not have that level of engagement with many of the parents (many of them I do not see, or they drop and run).  I would like to increase the level of engagement with these parents but don’t think I can push it on them, its one of the common problems of modern life – excessive busyness resulting in disengagement from community.  I think that GFRF can help to solve these problems, but people need to come to it in their own time – I’m not going to force it on them.

So how will people find out that I am offering things on a Give Freely Receive Freely basis?

Well, I’m going underground with it, but it will be underground with big gaping cavernous entrances and signs with flashing lights pointing the way in.  I think that GFRF has great potential to create better interactions between individuals and a better society and world for all of us to live in, so of course I am going to continue to tell people about it.  I will continue to write on this blog and share the posts with people.  I figure the people that ‘get it’ will find the idea and the posts interesting and will look around the site and find all of what is on offer.  Those that don’t ‘get it’ will just find the idea too strange and probably won’t look around the site or read many of the posts.

It really won’t be hard to find what I am offering GFRF, it will be listed on the directory along with the services of others that I find are offering things in this or a similar way.  Those that are interested will find it.

In addition to this I will continue to offer some of my services only on a GFRF basis, these services will act as entrance points to Give Freely Receive Freely and will introduce the idea to people and start them getting used to it.

And finally, if I come across someone who I think could particularly benefit from my GFRF offerings and somehow has not found out about it through other means, I’ll tell them about it and point them to this website.  I actually did this the other day with a parent who said they were having difficulty coming up with the fees for their child’s Kung Fu classes – so I guess technically I have already started offering Kung Fu on a GFRF basis.

What am I offering GFRF?

I will continue to offer the following services openly GFRF:

  • Clinical work (using Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine)
  • Weekend Workshops (Qigong and Self Defence Workshops)

I will offer the following on an underground GFRF basis: (people will have to ask for it)

  • Kung Fu classes
  • Term based courses (Qigong, Self Defence – possibly some more offerings soon)

The following will still have set prices due to the fixed incremental costs involved in supplying them: (although I do have ideas about trying to offer some of these on a GFRF  basis too, so stay tuned on that).

  • All physical products (health products, books, t-shirts, uniforms, massage equipment etc.)
  • Gradings and Examinations

What does the future hold for GFRF?

Well I will continue to experiment with ways of offering things on a Give Freely Receive Freely basis.  I think there is such value in GFRF to create better lives and a better world  for all of us, but I realize that it can take a lot of work to effectively link theory and practice.  I want to make this work on a practical level.  I will continue to share my experiences along the way as I find what works and what doesn’t work for me.

I will also continue to find and list details in the directory of other people doing things on a GFRF basis or similar.  I will also be interviewing or encouraging these people to contribute their experiences with GFRF to this blog so that we can all learn from and be inspired by each other – look forward to a post about my conversation with Ian from Northriver soon.

I may start again to post some items about my thoughts on politics, history and philosophy and how they apply to GFRF.  I pulled back from this for awhile because it all felt a bit overwhelming to lay out all the theory while being so new and inexperienced to the practice of GFRF.  I think its really important to get theory and practice in balance otherwise you just end up fantasizing… or even worse ranting.  So it will probably be only the occasional post on philosophy at this point as I think my focus needs to be more on practice right now, but I think there may be some value in beginning to write these again.

I am excited to be able to offer Kung Fu on a GFRF basis.  Kung Fu was a real sticking point for me in figuring out how I could offer it GFRF due to the dynamics of some of the interactions involved and I think taking it ‘underground’ may be a good way for me to do this.  I hope that it is successful and if there is enough of an underground movement I may be able to bring it out into the open later on.  As with all aspects of GFRF, it is an experiment at the moment.  I will continue to review tweak and change if necessary to find what works.

 

More Health Services

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Another group of practitioners have come to my attention doing something similar to ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’.  They are in Taranaki and offer their services to people under 18 for what the client can afford.

There was a news item about them here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/midweek/7850077/Natural-health-for-youth  and you can find their website here: http://www.villagehealth.co.nz/

Mates Rates – the fairest deal in the world

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Is everyone familiar with the term ‘mates rates’?  Its the idea that you give your friends a special deal on whatever you are selling/service you are providing because they are your mate (colloquial for friend).

I think that on the surface there is a lot of positive feeling behind this concept, the idea that you will give someone a really good deal because of your friendship – because you always want to help out your friends right?  and thats a good thing.

I’d like to take a little bit of a deeper look at this idea though and how it fits in with the Give Freely Receive Freely Concept.

Who is my friend?

How do we decide who our friends are, or who to be friendly to?  Personally I prefer to be friends and friendly with everyone.  If I truly am friends with everyone, how then do I choose who to give a ‘mates rates’ deal to?  Shouldn’t I be giving mates rates, or a great deal to everyone?

This reminds me of something that happened to me awhile ago.  I went to a friends shop (where I had visited him a number of times before), I chatted for a bit and then told him I had come to check out one of his products I was interested in buying.  There was an instant subtle change to our interaction.  It was obvious to me that in that moment in his eyes I went from being a friend to being a customer and he changed into a salesman.  He was trying to make a sale and get money from me.  I did end up buying something from him, but the whole thing made me feel a bit uncomfortable and our relationship has always seemed a bit different since then.

I don’t hold it against him, he was just trying to run his business the best way he knew how and this included him introducing an element of distance and coldness between him and a customer so that he can make the money he needs.  But isn’t there a better way, a way that would allow him to interact with friends and customers in the same warm way? (and have his friends as customers and customers as friends).

Business Owners Are Always Wealthy

I think part of the problem is entrenched in the idea that the business owner is always in a position to discount, and a true friend should get a deal that means the business owner is making no or very little money from them.

Anyone who has owned a business will tell you that they are not always able to discount.  There are many costs in running a business that are not obvious to an outsider or someone who has not run a similar business.  You can only run a business at break even or a loss for so long before you are no longer able to operate.  And if you were to give everyone such a deep discount that you don’t make money off them how would you pay your expenses?  how would you be able to feed yourself and your family?

I think this is one reason why business people feel the need to create distance between themselves and customers.  They feel uncomfortable profiting from friends, so they create a distinction between friends and customers so that they can profit and have the money they need to run their business and live.  In fact I think this affects all of us to some extent in our dealings with money, even with friends and family (theres even research to back this up, I mentioned it in a previous blog post here).

The Less Expressed Side of Mates Rates

I think the solution comes in the other less expressed side of the mates rates equations. I had never heard this other side of the equation until a few years ago.  It was after I had written and published my first book (you can see it here 🙂 ).  A friend said that he would like to buy a copy, and during that conversation he told me that “you don’t support a brother by asking for a discount, you support a brother by paying full price”.  He did buy a copy of my book, and he did pay full price – which I appreciated, but I think I appreciated even more this new idea he gave me in that conversation.  The idea that it is not always about getting a cheaper price because you are a friend, but sometimes the effect of the friendship flows the other way in paying full price because the buyer wants to support a friend.

Give Freely Receive Freely

I think that GFRF elegantly combines both sides of the ‘mates rates’ equation.  If a friend does not have a lot of money or other resources, the business owner gives it to them at a rate they can afford (decided by them).  On the other hand if the friend has plenty of money or other resources they can pay the business owner what would be “full price” or even more if they choose to support them in their efforts.  Price ceases to be a barrier and there is no need to create emotional distance between you and your customers.  Everyone becomes your ‘mate’, as you are treating each other the way a true friend would.

I know that for me, the relationship I have with customers and clients that pay on a GFRF basis feels different than the relationship I have with customers and clients that pay on a fixed price basis.  It is a closer and friendlier relationship.  I like this way of dealing with people better.  As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I would like to have all my business dealings with people on this basis, I’m just figuring out how to do it as the idea is unusual for most people.  I am trying to figure out how to do it in step by step way so people can get used to it and so that my business will not collapse due to unfamiliarity or other reasons – as that wouldn’t help anyone.

Already I offer quite a lot of what I do on this basis, but I have quite a way to go before offering everything this way.  Its been an interesting process so far.  I have learned a lot, and I know that there is still a huge amount to learn yet.  I hope you’ll continue to follow this blog as I write about my experiences along the way.

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On a side note related to this, I recently went to a vegetarian food outlet (the term restaurant would probably be a bit of a stretch in this case) and really enjoyed the food, so much so that I am already planning on going back there.  Well this morning in my email was a deal for meals at this place at less than half price.

My first instinct was to buy several of these deals to use with my friends.  But as I thought about it more, I didn’t really feel good about that.  I know how these deal sites work – the food outlet would end up receiving even less than the already extremely cheap deal.  Even at half price it would still be too cheap, they would probably be giving me my meal at a loss to them.

I was already planning on going back there… and after thinking about it, I would rather pay full price.  I don’t know them personally as a ‘friend’ but I like what they are doing and would rather support that by paying a fair amount for my meal.  I would like even more to be able to pay on a Give Freely Receive Freely basis… but theres not that many of us operating this way yet.  I’m not sure how much I would pay when left to figure out the value for myself, but I would try to make sure it was fair and reflected my appreciation of what they are doing.

 

Violin experiment

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I saw this on facebook.  I don’t know if it is true, but I have no reason to believe it is not true.  In fact this type of situation is fairly common in my experience.  I’ll leave some comments below of how this relates to ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’.

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“A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace,

and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”

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In our busy money driven world I think that most of us are missing all sorts of things everyday.  In fact I think many of us are completely missing ALL of the most important things in our lives.  Our sense of value and in a related way our sense of self is so skewed by the realities of our current economic system – we often end up valuing what we are ‘told’ we should value rather than what is truly worthwhile.

‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ addresses this in two ways.  For the person receiving a good or service, they are left to value what they are receiving for themself without being ‘told’ what it is worth.  This means that they have to engage in thought about value and what is valuable to them.  Encountering this in even a few interactions/transactions can lead to that person thinking about value at a deeper level in all of their interactions.

For the person giving the good or service, offering things in this way helps you to focus on the true value of what you offer rather than just a monetary value.  This can help you to tap into deeper sense of inspiration and meaning in your work.

GFRF is not without its challenges as a way of exchange, but I think it has a lot to offer in the lives of both the giver and receiver.

Who likes my ramblings?

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Well it turns out from some of my offline conversations that some people actually quite like reading my ramblings on this blog.  Its really hard to tell without some feedback.  So anyway, I think I might start writing posts about some of my bigger picture ideas with GFRF again – they might make interesting reading even if they are a long way from being acted on.

It really helps if you put comments on my blog posts.  It lets me know that there are people reading, thinking about, and maybe even enjoying what I write.