Thursday, December 6, 2012

Turning Down Free Lunches?

I've talked to a few small business leaders who want to grow their company and improve profitability. Sometimes the cost of bringing in outside help feels burdensome, and perhaps of low value. When the offer has been free help up to the point that the returns on the investment are manifest, quite a few still balk. I haven't figured out why this is true.

Are small business leaders just more risk averse? Is it dependent on whether they have more of a management role than a leadership role? Do they avoid 'free lunches' when they are not in the ownership group? Are they fearful that there are no 'free lunches' even for a short time? Are they worried that the proposals are like drug dealers'--get you hooked till you're addicted on the help and then you can't cut yourself loose? Or is it suspicion that the lunch is free, but the silverware isn't (like printers are free but the ink cartridges are really expensive)?

I haven't been able to correlate this to any personality types or other factors. I need more data. Will more of you please reject the 'free lunch' type proposals? Thanks. I appreciate that a lot. Perhaps I can sell the study results to other service providers, then I'll make some money.

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