Why I work for Free on Fridays

So time to come clean. Why do I work for Free on Fridays?  Well it’s coming up to our third  anniversary today. Crikey.!! Over 230 clients and organisations have had their ears (ever so gently) bent,  over, I estimate,  1018 cups of coffee, with several dozens of packs of hob-knobs have fueling the process.

Originally it started out as a bit of a joke to annoy my accountant and make him actually work for his money but was really based from my own experience, starting from the point that sometimes, as a small micro business myself , you just need someone to bounce ideas off, particularly when it comes to figuring out how you go about telling the world that you are actually in business, when you have no money and you are shy.  Not a great mix for a would be entrepreneur!

So finding someone who can be a sanity inspector, who could give me a push in the right direction and help me or my colleagues find a way of being different  from the 100 other nail bars, life consultants, or dog walkers was tricky but pretty well essential.  But that’s what I do and for some reason,  maybe because I am wired a bit differently, I can do that. It’s a blessing and a curse.

It’s a blessing as that a life long story gathere rand teller I somtimes see things differently to other people. Sometimes a curse because, when working on the bigger project stuff, I can get distracted. Ie know this - my colleagues do too. I need an outlet for other ideas that are continually being generated  in this cross wired up head of mine all the time, or I just go mad. I’m  addicted to finding better ways of telling stories, whether it’s the copy for a email or some aspect of customer service that makes them go ‘wow’ and tell all of their friends, or just finding a way a business can stand out from the crowd. I am addicted to and passionate about the power of stories, and helping pople tel theirs that delivers enagagement..

All the coaches and guru's  tells you that's what you need to do. To be innovative, to stand out,  but no-one really shows you how to actually do it.  How do you get that idea and how do you persuade the rest of the world that it is brilliant and should be invested in? That's what try I help people do.

For me communication without understanding the art of storytelling  is like having a red Ferrari on your drive with no petrol in it. It looks great but is pretty well useless.  You can sit in it and make all the sound effects, the brm, brm noises but you look like a bit of a ****head.

So Fridays is just the best day of my week, I get to meet great, interesting people with passion and help them to solve their problems,  and polish their game a  bit. But actually while it is about them its mostly about me, and thats what Free on Fridays is for me. To be honest it’s my therapy

“Barry  invests his Fridays into social projects, it's his way of adding value into the sector by bringing years of expertise to help people get their projects off the ground. He calls them Free Fridays, but in reality they're priceless! Barry is brilliant at unpicking a vision and then translating into a digital story, breaking each element down from big picture to practical details. He's both writer and strategist, his experience is International, his approach is warm, friendly, mentoring and inspiring.” Martin Dewhurst Founder of Penny on Trust

What is Free on Fridays all about? How does it work

Simple. We work for nothing on a Friday. Nada.

Our aim is to help new and growing businesses to get a foothold, get more customers and the help they need at a critical time in their growth or survival.

Obviously we have to be sensible about this ( Our currently recuperating accountant has made us promise). So a Free Friday preference is given to companies, charities or any individual or organisation who has to communicate and market its products or services who employ less than 10 people (that includes employing none - so if you have just started or thinking about starting up a business we would love to hear from you too).

If you employ more than 10 people then we figure that you can afford a small fee - which can be anything you like, we leave that up to you - but we ask that is a donation that to our Charity, which this year is Coaching for Hope. Please feel free to check them and the lovely Jane at CFH will help you with any other information about them you need.

But, and this is the main rule, you do have to live and trade in Yorkshire for us to come to you. If you want to visit us from anywhere that's fine but Yorkshire ( and the rest of the World)is a bloody big place to get there and back to on a Friday can be a bit tricky.

and we can do it by Skype anywhere else in the world.

What do you get from a free Friday?

Impartial advice about and/or actually how to get ideas that could work profitably;  then how to find, get and keep more clients. And anything else is up to you. You can have us for just an hour, or all day, whatever you need. Just tell us what help you think you need and we will add you to the waiting list. Maybe it’s something practical; maybe you need a killer new sales letter, or you just need something sanity checked or a sounding board. We don't mind. It helps if you can send us any marketing stuff you have a few days in advance if you have any yet. It doesn’t matter if you don’t. Just a few lines about your business will be fine and we will take it from there.

You do have to book us a few weeks in advance and, due to its success, ( or that fact that it is free) the list is getting longer. That’s it. Oh, but just to mention the main requirement is to have to be openminded enough to send us an email or give us a call in the first place. Currently the waiting list is six weeks.

There is no sales pitch. It is absolutely what it says in the tin. It is really, really, really Free, with no sneaky after stuff. You don’t even have be on our mailing list afterwards if you don’t want to be. Although you do then miss out on the now annual Xmas barbecue.

Why do we do it?

When I first started in my career I was incredibly lucky to meet two incredible mentors who helped me enormously. The only condition to giving all the free support and advice they gave me was, whenever I could, I had to 'Pay it Forward' too. This is just my way of doing it.

It is not just about keeping a promise though.

Actually it is the most inspiring and exciting part of our week. You are doing me as much a favour as much as the other way around.

What do we get out of it? Do we get business from it?

It's a fair question. We don’t get anything directly but to be honest the PR and great feedback spreads the storytelling4business story and doesn’t do us any harm.

But, above all, and the reason we carry on with this even in today's climate, is that it is just the best day of our week, because we know we are actually making a real difference to every Free Friday client we work with - which is now over 200 and counting - How do we know? They tell us, email us, send us bickies and cakes... It’s fantastic and we just love it. We hope you will too.

If you want to know more just drop me an email barryrainmaker@mac.com. Look forward to hearing from you