People Need Buy-in

Lesson #213 as a small business owner: Don’t work with friends for free.

This encompasses two scenarios:

1) Don’t give your product or services away for free.

2) Don’t have a friend work for you for free.

Any friend we’ve gifted our services to has not followed through - through no fault of their own, it’s just that they’re not bought in.

The situations where we’ve tried working with friends for free (to do our marketing, social media, etc) have also fizzled out - again, I think, because there’s no real buy-in. (It’s also probably partly mismanagement on my part...!)

In summary, free doesn’t work. People need buy-in.

On a related note: Ramping up a small business requires an enormous amount of energy and effort. Friends expecting your services for free by virtue of being your friend aren’t showing support for the business.