I love FreeCycle!

Aren't these beauties?!  I don't know whether you can tell from  this picture or not, but these are farm fresh eggs straight from the chickens to me via a FreeCycler.  Some are cream colored, some are various shades of brown, one is white, a few are beautifully speckled, and one is even a pale shade of green.  Some are small and some are extra large.  I love the variety in this container of eggs - they look so much more natural than the homogenous white or brown that you get from a store-bought carton of eggs.

So, what is FreeCycle, you may ask?  It is a wonderful system of disposing of stuff that you no longer need, passing it on for free to others who might want it.  In the past, I've received a set of encyclopedias, some foreign postage stamps, a bunch of wooden hoops, and a box of broken ceramic dishes.  Some of these items have already found a home in my art and others I took because I had a specific project in mind for them.  For my part, I've gotten rid of a blood pressure cuff, an ancient Linksys router, a paper shopping bag full of binders, various books, a few old computer parts (some non-working), a stack of VCR tapes (unrecorded), and plenty of other things over the years that have slipped my mind by now.

Most recently, I had been in the habit of saving egg cartons because I was a member last summer of our local produce co-op.  Each week or two I'd trade in my empty egg carton for a full one of farm fresh eggs from a local egg producer.  After I stopped getting produce last fall, I kept on saving my egg cartons out of habit.  So, I finally had worked up to a stack of 15 to 20 of them and decided it was time for them to go.  Larry was willing to come get them from Cornville.  When I opened my front door to greet him, he graciously handed me this full carton of gorgeous eggs!

Mind you, FreeCycling is supposed to be free - that's the point.  It wasn't intended to be a barter group.  For whatever reason, Larry not only felt that it was worth his time to come get the cartons in the first place, it was also worth handing me some of the eggs that he sells.  After I thanked him, I told him that it wasn't really necessary to give me eggs in return.  He said that the egg cartons were necessary to him being able to give out his eggs, so they were worth a carton of his eggs coming to me.  Like I said in the header, I love FreeCycle and the people who use it!  Everyone I've interacted with so far has been great!

So if you are interested in getting rid of old stuff that you no longer use, but don't really have enough to make the time and effort of a garage sale worthwhile, you might want to check out your local Freecycle group.  There are local groups all over the country, so that people aren't traveling very far to pick up or drop off stuff.  Some groups even work with local recycling centers to keep some of the stuff out of the trash stream.  Great for the planet, great for the giver, and great for the reciever.  Win/win/win!  What a deal!

Speaking of new spaces...

I've moved into my new office at Dr. Adams' chiropractic clinic and am ready to start working from  there.  Since I don't have many bookings yet, I'm still spending most of my time outside the clinic drumming up business at other places around town.  In the process, I'm putting together a book for my office of other offerings from around Sedona that compliment my own practice so that I can make recommendations.  As I'm passing out my marketing materials, I collect biz cards or flyers to hand out to my clients so that I can make it easy for them to contact the other businesses.  I love win/win situations!

Admittedly, it was a little challenging at first to go out to local businesses and start selling myself and my practice.  The nice thing was that everyone was really welcoming - willing to trade information and make recommendations of other places I could stop into where appropriate.  After a few great interactions, it got easier to plan out the next batch.  I'm sure that it would have been harder for me if the first few businesses I went into were not so welcoming...  But you never know until you try, so it was definitely worth taking the deep breath and going for it!

You know, the fact that the first 20 to 30 minute demo session on the Trinfinity8 machine is free was a great ice breaker.  I could offer both the people at the business and their clients something for free to allow them to interact with me and my practice with no risk to themselves.  The only cost to me is 20 to 30 minutes of my time, but the potential  benefit of introducing someone to my practice is enormous!  So far it seems well worth the time to conduct the session, as well as the time and effort of going around to these businesses introducing myself and handing out my marketing materials.

So, if you are starting a new business - or perhaps even an established one that isn't getting many new customers - and you don't have a low- or no-cost initial offering of your own, you might want to consider creating one.  Like my offer, it doesn't necessarily have to cost you anything more than a little time.  That does depend on your business, of course, but generally there is some aspect of your business that you could give away as an ice breaker, whether it be a free e-book, a shorter free session (if you are in a service business), a free video tutorial, or some type of low cost product that will introduce potential customers to your business and allow them to "try you out."  Think outside the box and consider giving it a try!