Recently, I held a Pay What You Can design sale. You may have heard of it, if you happen to live in my corner of the internets.
The sale ran for about a week and a half, and I Tweeted and Facebooked and newslettered about it like mad for the first couple of days, and then only a little here and there after that. It was far more popular a sale than I anticipated, and I learned a lot from being a part of it.
Before I get into what I learned, I’d like to give you a little back story. In October, for some mysterious reasons I’ll leave fuzzy because they involve people I care about, I was down about two thousand dollars in my business income. Since my business is still the primary vehicle to pay my family’s bills and buy my groceries and keep the cable internet on, this was upsetting and scary, to say the least.
I’m sure you’ve been there before – counting your dollars and determining what you can cut out of that month’s budget, and trying like hell not to worry too hard because times have been worse than this and you’ve been fine in the end.
Generosity is the antidote to fear.
Without much warning, the idea for the sale popped into my head one night. I got so excited I could hardly type the announcement blog post fast enough. The sale would offer three things I’d recently taken off my services page, and I would allow any takers to pay me what they could, rather than the usual price.
I was pretty sure that only a few people would take me up on it, and that was okay with me. I just wanted to be generous. I wanted to reach the people who usually couldn’t afford to work with me, and my other motive was that I also wanted money to pay my rent. (Side note: wanting money to survive is NEVER a bad reason to have a sale.)
Within a day, I edited the post to add two other things to the sale, because people were so excited and asking questions and being so very thankful and happy.
And I stopped being afraid. My fear was entirely swallowed up in my happiness at working with more wonderful people, at hearing their stories about their bootstrapping businesses, at seeing how generous they were able to be even when they felt they had nothing much to offer. Their generosity broke my heart with love, and I was no longer afraid.
Generosity isn’t just for the rich.
I used to imagine that one day when I was rich, I would give thousands of dollars to all the charities I care about. (And I still will – just you wait.)
But that small sale of mine has showed me that generosity is not just for the rich; and that generosity is possible even when you have pennies to give.
Last month, I was worried about scraping by and getting the bills paid, so I offered what I had: my design services and my Thesis skills.
My new clients offered what they had in return: money that mattered to them just as much as my money matters to me.
None of us are financially rich, but we experienced reciprocal generosity. You don’t have to be rich to give something worth giving.
Have you heard the story of the widow and her two pennies? It’s a parable from the Bible, and Jesus told it as an example of what true sacrifice looks like. A poor widow, intending to give her offering at the temple like all the other people of her faith, gave two pennies. The priests saw her offering and snickered about it, because it was so tiny; but what they failed to realize was that she had just given 100% of her money to the temple.
You can give all of yourself without needing to have more than what you have, and you can give all of yourself without needing to be more than what you are.
Be generous NOW.
You don’t have to run a Pay What You Can sale to truly love your customers, and you don’t have to give them everything you have to truly love them either.
But you can be generous, and you should be. Be generous NOW. Don’t wait for extra money or extra time or extra awesomeness to fall into your lap. Be generous NOW, and see what changes.
There are as many different kinds of generosity as there are people who are willing to be open and vulnerable and loving, so go for it. There’s something you can do. Go ahead and do it.
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[…] blog, and I’m super proud of it. I’d love for you to read it when you have time: Be Generous NOW. Be More Awesome {post series}Be More Awesome: Caffeinated Recommendations #2 If you enjoyed this […]
[…] Rachael Acklin, the Caffienated Elf, has written a beautiful post on the benefits of generosity: “Be Generous NOW“ […]
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What a great post, Rachel. There’s something about running a sale from a place of generosity that changes the paradigm. Feeling strapped is so incredibly stressful (something I’m also familiar with), and the spirit of Customer Love and generosity really helps to diffuse that.
Thanks for a good reminder and call to action!
@Melissa, yes, exactly!
Not only did I feel like I was doing something GOOD rather than something DESPERATE, I was also able to see more clearly the needs of the people who were buying my stuff. It was a life-changing experience.
Rachel, I love your post and your story, however this concept of PWYC makes me really uncomfortable as a buyer. I’d rather know the price and have a discount coupon to use. It’s more concrete. The perceived value is higher, don’t you think?
On the other hand maybe I should try this with my corporate photography clients who call and say, “How much for ‘x, y, z’ photo shoot?” And I reply, “What’s your budget?” (so that I can get a handle on their expectations) and they often don’t know what to say. I guess what I should really be saying is: “What can you pay?” Because really that’s what their budget is.
So two very different situations here. Clearly, I’m struggling.
By the way, you never said if you reached your financial goals with your PWYC sale. I’d be interested to know the end of the story.
@Marlene, I set some specific bill-paying-related goals for the sale, and I hit every one. Thank you for asking after that. 🙂
Regarding having a PWYC sale for things that people may not know the usual or intrinsic value of – that’s a very good point. I had a sale on three (plus a few) things that I’d sold before, and I gave an idea of their worth in the sale post itself. Also, I wanted to sell things that wouldn’t bankrupt my time to do them for any cost.
I hope that helps. 🙂
@Marlene, I re-read your comment and I’m not sure I properly answered it, lol. (This is what happens when I type pre-caffeine.)
I think it may have made some customers feel weird that they didn’t know EXACT pricing on which to base their offer. It helped that I left comments open on that post, and one of the first people to buy something left her asking price in her comment for everyone to see. After that, most people subconsciously used that as a guide for their own offer.
Yes, that helps! Thanks so much.
I remember thinking when you posted your offer that it was a super cool idea. And what’s even better than a super cool idea is when it actually works! Kudos to you – I love your always-ready-to-reset-the-paradigm attitude. Keep up the good work!
Thanks. 😀
Being a paradigm-resetter is scary, but it’s SO REWARDING.
You’ve hit the million-dollar solution to financial fear. Give and you will receive. And your fear will melt away. Wonderful idea and execution, Rachael, even though I’m only just reading about it.
Thank you. 🙂 I’m happy to share my epiphanies!
We were just talking about the PWYC strategy in our chat the other night, so I think it’s great to have a CustomerLove participant experience highlighted. I feel like this philosophy is true in so many things- when you give without expectation, it is amazing to see what people want to give you in return. It just takes the willingness to take the risk and put yourself out there. Wonderful post- thanks Rachael!