Free chocolate

Free samples can make a customer buy even if the plan was just to drop by. I experience that at The Margaret River Chocolate Company just outside Perth. I really only want to taste some free chocolate and drive on. But then something happens in my head.

It’s late January 2012, and we’re travelling around Australia. This is a wine region with a chocolate factory and an ice cream factory, among other things. I show some of the room and try filming through a window where they make chocolate. Perhaps there isn’t much to see, so we go outside for some peace.

Free samples and the feeling of owing something

It’s around 40 degrees outside. We’ve just tasted the three free chocolate samples: Dark, milk and completely white.

My plan was very simple. In for a taste, then off again. We’re travelling on, and in that heat you can’t leave chocolate in the car. That almost goes without saying.

But the moment I get something free and think it tastes lovely, I also begin feeling I owe something. That’s the mechanism I find interesting. I think I’ve talked about it before too.

I call it reciprocal value: You receive something and feel like returning the favour. In a shop like this, buying something is the obvious way to give back.

The explanation I’ve heard about reciprocity

In the video, I share an explanation I’ve heard: Back in prehistoric times, groups good at helping one another had a better chance of survival. They could have more children, passing on the tendency to help and reciprocate.

That’s how it’s been explained to me. I’m not presenting research on human evolution here. I use the story to explain the feeling I have after receiving something free.

The result is certainly concrete: I buy coffee for my wife and me, and we also buy a little chocolate to eat in the car as we continue. Perhaps we don’t even particularly want more after the samples. Yet we end up buying.

It’s actually not a bad idea. Think about it in your own business. Giving something away can make people want to buy from you too. There’s no guarantee, but here I see the mechanism working on myself. You’ll find more of my experiences with customers and business in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

An interview with Danish winegrowers is coming

On the trip, I’ve also visited a vineyard where they’ve made wine since the 1980s. We’ve had a fantastic interview of around an hour about being winegrowers in Australia.

I explain it’ll soon be on Amino TV. If you’re watching this video several months later, the interview may already be there. But at recording time in late January 2012, I expect a month or a month and a half before it goes online.

Until then, you can watch some of the other interviews already posted. I mention around ten interviews with interesting Danish entrepreneurs who’ve chosen to settle around the world.

If you have a little dream of moving abroad, there’s inspiration and practical experience to draw on. They describe moving from Denmark and getting visas for places such as the USA, Hawaii and Australia. Later in the trip, I’ll visit more countries.

Those are the people and stories I want to show. Take a look at Amino TV. And think about what a little free sample might set in motion with your own customers.