We work for Free on Fridays

So time to come clean. Why do I work for Free on Fridays? Well, it's coming up to my 12th anniversary today. Crikey.!! Over 400 clients and organisations have had their ears (ever so gently) bent over, I estimate, 3200  cups of coffee, with several dozens of packs of hob-knobs fuelling the process.

Initially, it started as a bit of a joke to annoy my accountant and make him work for his money. Still, it was based on 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 have a new product  How do you get that idea out there. when you have no money, you are shy. and suffer from imposter syndrome.? Not a great mix for a would be entrepreneur!

So finding someone who could be a sanity inspector, who could push me in the right direction and help me or my colleagues find a way of being different from the 100 other engineers, surveyors, architects, designers, consulting engineers, and builders, was tricky but pretty essential. But that's what I do, and for some reason,  maybe because I am wired a bit differently, as a neurally diverse person,  I can do that. It's a blessing and sometimes a curse..

It's a blessing that, I have a  savant skill  of joining  dots  others don't see. I sometimes see things differently. Sometimes a curse because, when working on a bigger project management stuff, I can get distracted.by other dots and patterns I wasn't really looking for. I need an outlet for other ideas that are continually being generated inside this cross-wired up head of mine, or I go mad. I'm addicted to finding better ways of telling stories, whether it's the visualisation, copy for an 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 managing their knowledge and scalability and helping people to tell stories that deliver value and engagement and grow their business while allowing them to have the time to enjoy their success..

All the coaches and gurus tell you that's what you must do. To be innovative, stand out, work more intelligently but not more challenging, no one shows you how to 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.

Our technical specialism is spatial imagery and cognitive psychology.. How does the brain process and help us recall the information we need to make decisions?  How do you use cameras and images to improve your workflow and deliverables? How to better tell your story? How to share knowledge with clarity and engagement? 

But, along the way, we can couple these questions with the experience of over 50 product launches that has taught me  a lot. Not the least of which is what not to do..

Most importantly, how to find and to ask the most beautiful question. 'She who asks the most beautiful question gest the most beautiful question' to miss quote ee cummings.

Without understanding how to manage, curate and share your knowledge, communication would be like having a beautiful red Ferrari on your drive with no petrol. It looks great but is useless. You can sit in it and make all the sound effects, the brm, brm noises but go nowhere.

Fridays are just the best day of my week; I get to meet great, interesting people with passion and help them solve their problems and polish their game. and find the beautiful question But actually, while it is about them, it's mostly about me, and that's 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 to 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 translating it into a digital story, breaking each element from the 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 2013

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

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

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

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 that has to communicate and market its products or services who employ less than ten people (that includes using 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 ten people, you can probably  afford to invest a small fee - which can be anything you like; we leave that up to you - but we ask that it be a donation to your local Charity partner.

What do you get from a free Friday?

Impartial advice about and/or how to get ideas that could help you work more efficiently and 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 whatever you need all day. Let us know what help you need, and we will add you to the 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. A few lines about your business will be fine, and we will start the conversation from there.

You do have to book us a few weeks in advance and, due to its success, ( or the fact that it is free), the list is getting longer. That's it. Oh, but just to mention, the main requirement is to be open-minded enough to send us an email or 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 can be on our mailing list only after you want to be. Although you do then miss out on the now annual Xmas barbecue

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Why do we do it?

When I started my career, I was lucky to meet two incredible mentors who helped me enormously. The only condition for 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.

It is the most inspiring and exciting part of our week. You are doing me as much a favour 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 spread the 'Acknowledgement' 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 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 biscuits and cakes... It's fantastic, and we just love it. We hope you will too.

If you want to know more, just email me at barry@knowledgement.co.uk . I look forward to hearing from you.