I offered a local restaurant a free website today

What will happen is that the "word of mouth" will be that you're offering free websites, not a website worth money.

You should never give away your services for free unless you want to for charity or friendship. If it's for business you are making a mistake.

Does that restaurant business owner give a fig about YOUR business or if you have money to put food on YOUR table?

It sounds harsh but it's a truth. It took me a long time to learn this lesson and many, many knocks on my head. The reality is, you could design the best website in the world for this business but if they don't see your services as worthy of paying for, you're putting your own business in a dangerous corner.

I work with businesses in many different sectors every day. I consult on ways for them to grow their online business. If I gave that knowledge away, pretty soon I wouldn't be feeding myself or my family.

That's not to ever say that you don't offer a friendly word of advice or help for free, and that's what I'm going to do for you right now.

Find a way to show how you building this restaurant a website will increase their sales. Once you've cracked that, now you have something real and juicy worth paying money for.

giving free websites to a business will get you the exposure you need. But instead of being the guy who built a great website at a great price, you'll be the guy who builds free websites for businesses. once that gets out that you are doing them for free, the first customer you try to sell the service to will tell you "you built a website for so and so for free, why not me?" so don't offer your services for free. you can offer them a good website at a low price then you can upsell them on other services to boost your profit.

Perhaps you can upsell them on hosting, SEO or Social Marketing?

Or you could get free hamburgers?

Is this a diary entry, or do you have a point? What happened next?

This is a great idea, I am sure when the business evolves and increases, the owner will not forget about you

Did you give a full custom website and your hosting it for free?

can you give more details on the free website

This has potential to be beneficial for you, to be honest. It's not a terrible thing to do. Hey, at least you're doing something GOOD if nothing else!

Maybe accredit your service / web design company on the page? If you're doing it for free, don't be scared to write "Designed by ____" with a hyperlink. Try and get referrals.

Talk to the owner. Let him know that you're doing it to be helpful, but that you would also love for him to be able to refer you to any paying clients he may know, if he's satisfied with your work.

Do you have business cards yet? If so, give him 2-3 extra ones. Ask him if he could hand them out to some friends of whom might need a website done too.

It's all about creating a network. BEST OF LUCK!

Offer to build a FREE website for the owner to "build your portfolio". Explain that you can only afford to maintain it for FREE for 3 months, and if they think that it is helping their business and would like to keep it going beyond that, all they would need to pay starting the 4th month is $X per month, but until then -- no contracts, fees, or obligations.

After about the third time you call to see how things are going, explain that you can also get them on Google Places, create a Youtube vid, create a mobile site, etc... for only $x, whenever they are ready....

This way, at least there is POTENTIAL for payment somewhere down the road. Until then, you have increased confidence in talking to business owners and have a sample to show other businesses.

Doing stuff for free is Ok, but you should never do stuff for nothing!

Doing it for free (i.e. no monetary payment) is different to doing it for nothing. A deal of ANY kind should be symbiotic, all parties should get something out of it..

Draw up a list, and go for it. My advice would be to build the site on the understanding that the owner will give you 5-10 referrals to other businesses, and that you can use him as an introduction. Tell him that you are in effect 'buying leads' and not giving away websites. Explain that we all have to eat in business, and that you will build him a website value of £xxx (tell him the actual cost so that he understands YOUR VALUE AS A BUSINESS, and as such will then appreciate what he is getting for free.

Getting referrals is the way ahead in offline mrketing. for every sale, get 3 referrals, close 1 in 3 referrals and you will never have to cold call again

doing something you love as your way to give back to the community is such a wonderful way to give justice to your talent. I honestly think in return, the restaurant's offer will be a good way to spread a word about you and your services. If the website you will be making for them could help them massively when it comes to their marketing strategies.. you might have free burgers for life there However, I hope that earning something from a "free" or "something you do to give back to the community" does not lead you to a thinking that those people actually owes you something. It is a breath of fresh air to see people like you, talent is meant to be shared not only to people or organization that could offer you a good offer in return.

Guys this is NOT giving something back to the community, this is giving something for nothing to a business. NEver confuse the two.

Giving something back to the community would be putting up and SEO'ing a free local site and allowing businesses and individuals to advertise for free.

I appreciate the feedback - positive and negative. It's interesting how different people look at the same thing as either a good thing or as a bad thing.

If I do a website it will be free but I plan to charge a small fee for hosting/upkeep but also with a free trial period to start. I also hope to sell other services to him. I want to see this new business do well. I don't think they'll make it with what they're doing now, they need someone to give them a little push.
I've read a lot on this forum and have also taken into account my what my reaction usually is when a stranger is trying to sell me something. For me it's all about the approach & earning a persons trust. Having said that, everybody is different, not everybody sees things the same way. Some things work for one person that don't work for another. I really believe you need to be true to yourself whatever method you choose. For me, I get great satisfaction in being able to help others do well.
I'm going to follow a combination of Johns method and Eddies method
Along with Jasons method of a cold call and showing the client with actual numbers how much you can make for them by bringing in extra customers.
and James' advice here on setting up a demo site
Again, I do appreciate all comments and advice. I'm always learning!
God bless the Warrior Forum.

You never said whether this business took you up on the free offer. Have they said yes?

I've learned that offering this kind of thing for free still has many people saying no, even when its free. Could be just a perception thing.

Maybe it would be better to do a site mock up for them and them let them know that if they like it, they can have it for a reduced price of $299, rather than your usual fee of $599. Then you've made some money for your time. Or you could offer the site for free or low cost, and then set up an email birthday club or SMS for $XXX per month. That will bring more business than a website alone.

I'm sure this business doesn't make a practice of handing out free food, even if it will "help others". That's a quick way to go out of business.

I haven't talked to the owner yet. I introduced myself to his son, spoke briefly, gave him my number. I will talk to him this week. Kids went back to school today so I'm a mess! LOL

The free website is not necessarily a bad idea if you can offer an upsell service like SEO, online reputation management, etc. somewhere down the road. It is indeed important to build a solid reputation for yourself, and the word of mouth would be good.

Obviously you don't have to give everyone that contacts you a free website, or you could and then charge a monthly residual for hosting, which seems to be an attractive package.

Thanks for the positive feedback much appreciated

Count me with the people who think you did a good thing. And while some people see branding yourself as the "free website" person as a bad thing, I can see it opening doors that otherwise might remain closed.

I think the concept of using a free website to give back to the community though is flawed ... unless you are independently wealthy and are truly giving back . It is far better to make it clear that you are providing RIA (Results In Advance), a well known technique advocated by Frank Kern. And if this works out for them, then you would love to have them as a client. If not, then no hard feelings and maybe sometime in the future they might become a client.

The only caveat would be to make sure the type of people you are attracting with this offer are the type of people you would enjoy working with on a long term basis.

Marvin

Offering them a free website sounds like a great idea.However, what will work better is offering them a free report to tell them how they can build the website themselves and then once they come to you that is when you can now ask for the price you deserve.

Offering a discount to local businesses is a good practice but offering a website for free is a bad idea. Word of mouth advertising is only as good as what is says to your future customers. You don't want people talking about how you gave away your services. You want them talking about how well priced you are and more importantly you want them talking about what a great experience they had with you.