Herman School of Business
Is all that milking necessary?
When I created Equity Partners, Inc. there was a philosophy that I put in place that withstood the test of time. If a banker or lawyer wanted to know what our firm could do with a certain business in trouble they would call and ask how much we would charge for a visit to the plant or facility and that first sit-down chat where we propose a solution. Zip was the answer. We would charge a prospective client nothing to fly across the country, rent a car, stay in a hotel, spend half a day at the company, fly back and prepare a proposal based on our findings. They would pay us nothing.
How can you do business for free? It didn’t cost them anything to have us look at the deal before we all agreed what we could do, and that policy drove my other two partner’s nuts. I insisted that was the way it had to be. Give that service away and I believed with all my heart more business would come our way, because it didn’t cost the banker or lawyer anything to get our proposal. They weren’t spending up front money to find out we couldn’t provide them with the answer they needed. And therefore bankers called…and told other bankers to call.
It was easy to get the partners to see that part. But I didn’t charge business owners anything either if they wanted me to come and see them to discuss what they needed. And the advice we could give on that meeting was sometimes worth thousands to the owner, even if he didn’t contract with my firm for the deal. Other firms charged expenses plus a thousand dollars a day or more while I went for free and paid my own expenses. Remember, we ended up doing over 300 deals in 22 years and made tens of millions of dollars in fees…so not milking the client, or the banker, or a law firm paid off big time as I expected it would.
Today I am a writer and see a new form of “milking your customers” in this field. Sell someone a book, then sell them some tapes, grab a few bucks from a seminar, and then mentor or coach them for even more cash. Some of the most respected business writers’, or people with sound business advice have turned a good idea from their first book, into a cottage industry of milking their readers over and over again for more dollars. And sometimes those costs are in the thousands, for the best “life coaching” or “power ideas” or “quantum leap” programs that apparently you needed but didn’t get in the original book that started your relationship with the author in the first place.
Now, as an author I get pushed to “package some more product” to sell to loyal readers. I’ll tell you what; here is my philosophy as a business writer. You can have the blog for free as long as there are interested readers who want it. And right now there are two books I wish you would all buy dozens of copies of for your friends, but know I am grateful for even one copy of either book. If I write another one, not expected in the near future, I will ask for another sale. You see I had a message I wanted to deliver in telling the story of who I am…THE INNKEEPER TALES is my life story, and after you found out who I was and how I got here, I wanted to write a book about my business and life philosophy…..HERMANISMS. So, for now, there is no need to worry about me asking for more of your dough. Either my messages are in the books or in the blog.
So as not to be called a fraud later, please do know I expect you to buy a HERMANISM T-Shirt when they get to market, or a Herman School of Business hat, and some have asked for books-on-tape version which we will do, but I have told you all of what I think you need to know for now in these two books, and we can expound or update stuff here in the blog. And since I am not “milking you for money” how about doing me a little favor and letting me “milk you for other people” by asking that you share the books, and make people aware of this blog, as I hope to keep doing this for awhile…you see, I believe in my message and I don’t want to keep asking you to support me…let’s get some of your friends coming this way.
- Posted: 9 January 2008
- Comments: 1
- Category: Running a business
Great post – you obviously had great confidence in the service you were offering which would in turn inspire confidence in your clients.
As for milking, I know what you mean. Some add on products are essential to the survival of any business. But, I can’t stand these gurus who squeeze thousands from their loyal customers, by pushing them into their worthless ecourses and seminars.
Herman says: Thanks...and I have great confidence that all you need for now is in the two books I wrote...Written by Catherine Lawson on 10 January 2008