samples

[Steffan]

When your sales prospect requests samples, do you give it away, or do you charge a nominal price for it? Like a buck a bottle, just to defray packaging costs.

Waddaya think, dumb idea? Suicidal? Brilliant wave of the future?

Steffan
Steffan's Aldergrove Brewery
www.aldergrovebrewery.com

[beertje46]

We give it away.

[Buckley]

this is one of those times you have to give to get. =)

[JoeV]

We give it away, although we still write up an invoice for $0.00 as a way of tracking our samples down.

[GlacierBrewing]

We give it away. I've always felt in the sometimes cut-throat, handle-stealing world of account chasing, if we ever tried to charge a potential account to taste our products, that'd be the last thing we'd probably ever sell that account.

[tsewong73]

Hell, I don't even go into a potential account without a free sample of each of our beers. Of course, we're only brewing two kinds right now. Anyway, we're self-distributing in our area, so I need to get a leg up on the other distributors any way I can. Definitely stick to free samples.

[einhorn]

No getting around this one.

Look at it this way: be happy that you work in a business in which you can so easily provide samples for your potential customers. People selling houses, PCs, cars, general services, etc. have a lot tougher time getting people to try their products at least once.