Seth Godin’s latest example of bad advice

I often comment on other blogger’s posts. I take their ideas, add my two cents, and re-frame their generic information so it is appropriate for attorneys. I think writing teachers refer to this as, “compare and contrast.” It’s an easy way to create interesting, timely, and relevant content.

But while “comparing and contrasting” might make for an interesting post, there’s nothing better than writing a post where you completely disagree with someone, especially when that someone is a respected and well known expert. Such was the case with a recent post by marketing expert extraordinaire, Seth Godin, with which I completely disagreed.

Oops, Seth did it again.

Seth’s new post is about “sampling,” offering free samples to prospective customers to get them to try your product. In the food market, shoppers are offered a taste on a cracker, for example. If they like it, they buy the product.

Seth says it’s a bad idea. A waste of money.

Au contraire, mon frère

Sampling works. Yes, you wind up giving free samples “to people who have no intention to buy,” as Seth points out, but you sell far more than you give away.

Seth claims merchants look at sampling as a cost of doing business, like overhead. Not true. It’s an investment. Done right, it earns the merchant a big return on that investment.

Spend X dollars giving away free samples. Take in Y dollars in resulting product sales. The difference is profit.

You spend money to make money. It’s how business works.

And let’s not forget that once you try a new product and like it, you might then purchase that product every week for years to come.

Or, you might not buy the product being sampled but you might like the cracker it was served on and buy that. You might see something on the shelf you had not noticed before because you usually don’t stop in that part of the store and buy that. Or maybe it’s as simple as coming back to shop at that particular store because you like the free samples and the store down the street doesn’t offer them.

Look, the retail industry tracks everything: every product, every price point, every penny earned as a result of a sale or promotion.

If sampling didn’t work, trust me, they wouldn’t do it.

Well guess what? Sampling works for attorneys, too. When attorneys invest an hour in a free consultation, they usually get the client to sign up. (If you’re not, we need to talk). Those consultations don’t cost you, they pay you, by bringing you more clients, some of whom come back again and again and refer others.

Give prospects a sample of what you sell and they will buy more of what you sell.

Not only is there a mountain of empiracal evidence to support this, it’s also been documented by psychologists. It’s called “the law of reciprocity” which says that when you give something to someone, they are psychologically compelled to reciprocate.

The more you give away, the more you get in return.

For the record, there are other ways attorneys can offer samples besides a free consultation. You can give away the service itself, a free will for example, knowing that in doing so, you’ll sign up many of those clients for living trusts or other services.

Of course marketing is both art and science. You have to know what to give away, and to whom. You have to keep track of your results so you know what works best. You don’t want to give away more than you need to get the client, but you don’t want to give away less than you need and not get them at all.

Sampling isn’t something an attorney must do. But clearly, it works. If you don’t want to give away consultations or services, you can give away digital products–reports, ebooks, audios, and so on–to provide prospective clients with a sample of your knowledge and expertise. Seth thinks this is a good idea and does this himself to promote his products. Digital products are good to sample, he says, “. . .because more free samples cost you nothing.”

Oh, now I get it. Seth does know that sampling works. He’s just cheap.