2 for 2 on IBW

How do you gen­er­ate pos­i­tive word of mouth?  How about if you decided to give away free stuff that peo­ple wanted each and every week.  That is pre­cisely what the smart peo­ple at 800ceoread.com do on their site InBubbleWrap.com — one of my favorite sites on the web.

I have men­tioned the site on this blog numer­ous times, as well as on social net­works, in con­ver­sa­tion, and at just about any oppor­tu­nity I get to share it with oth­ers. For those who don’t know, InBubbleWrap.com gives away free books every week.  These books are some of the best busi­ness books ever writ­ten, and all that is required is to answer a cou­ple fun ques­tions.  It is truly bril­liant.  The site went away for a while, but recently made a tri­umphant return to the web. I dis­cov­ered it was back about three weeks ago.  In the time since I have entered in two give aways and have won in both!

Last week my lat­est prize from InBub­bleWrap showed up in the mail — Sam Walton’s Made in Amer­ica.   I am look­ing for­ward to read­ing it, although I have not yet read the last book I won from them.   The site is doing a great job of moti­vat­ing me toward my goal of read­ing more this year.  I need to get busy so that I can keep up.

Why is the site so great?  Well I am an avid reader and now plan to order sev­eral books on my wish list from 800ceoread now as opposed to their numer­ous com­peti­tors.  I am not say­ing that I won’t pick up dis­counted books at B&N or Bor­ders, but my first stop on the web is now going to be 800ceoread.  Why?  Well, Dr. Cial­dini would explain this in terms of the basic prin­ci­pal of reci­procity.  It is why back in the day, Amway reps would give you tons of free sam­ples of their prod­ucts to try.  It is the same rea­son religous sects some­times hand out flow­ers at the air­port, and then ask you for a dol­lar.  They give value first.  Because they did some­thing nice for me, I now want to return the favor.  I would guess that this prin­ci­ple was prob­a­bly part of the inspi­ra­tion for the inbub­blewrap site.  Cer­tainly I am not oblig­ated to buy from them, but I just want to sup­port them now by send­ing them my busi­ness — and telling you about them on my site.   Per­haps you will soon be doing the same.

What can your busi­ness learn from InBubbleWrap.com ?  For me it reminds me of some­thing Seth Godin so bril­liantly said in a recent blog post — Inter­act first, sell second.

Thanks to Dylan and the IBW Crew for hook­ing me up yet again!

InBub­bleWrap: Made in America