Recently, a company I am friendly with received a request from a guy asking for a sample to test. He wasn’t even picky about the product he was interested in. It just had to be free. The company and the guy went back and forth and eventually it came out that the guy was with a large government agency, who will remain nameless in this article because, in my opinion, his actions did not represent the agency.
I’m sharing this because it is from an industry standpoint and explains their point of view when dealing with the rather frequent requests for “samples”. This is their final response to his request.
“With your initial approach, I was *hoping* that this whole thing was a joke. When your rationale for us sending you a free piece of gear was “a couple of guys with XXX”, I felt sure it was a joke. Since it appears that you’re not kidding, let me lay it out for you.
Gear costs money to make. So anything that we have in stock, it cost us money to get. Particularly our gear which is made in the USA and not marked up very much. So when we send out something “free” for someone to evaluate, we’re actually spending money to do that and we have to believe that there is a good chance for a return on our investment. There are two types of evaluations that we typically send gear out for.
The first type of evaluation is to a journalist of some type. In that case, we look at their reach (how many people are reading their articles) and also their experience base. We want guys evaluating our gear for the public who actually know something about what they’re talking about. And we want to know that they are reaching thousands of people with their opinion. Or at least tens of exactly the right kind of people. When these people approach us they introduce themselves, cover their background, and then go on to talk about what publication they are writing the article for and what that publication’s reach looks like.
The second type of evaluation is an official unit or agency evaluation. This is where a police department or military unit or something like that reaches out and says “I’m so and so with such and such military unit and we are going to be buying 120 patrol packs this year and yours is one of the three we would like to consider”. The language is often quite formal, always comes from a government email address, and includes a signature line so we know exactly who we are dealing with and what their rank and position within their organization is. Usually these are structured in such a way that there is a limited evaluation period and they return the gear after evaluation.
That pretty much covers it. And I’ll give you another hint — the highest level most legitimate users of our products never reach out and ask for a free evaluation. They buy them off the shelf at no discount and we don’t even find out about it until we notice a spate of similar orders all going to addresses in the same military town. Or until a supply guy reaches out and says “hey, we’ve been testing your gear and now we need a quote for 20 of such and such”. Many journalists also follow a personal policy of paying full retail for items to avoid conflict of interest. So a whole lot of people who could be getting free gear — choose not to.
I hope you can see the difference between these very legitimate requests for evaluation and yours — both in the approach and in the rationale.
Good luck in your future endeavors.”
I don’t want any free “shit.” I have plenty of that. In fact, a never ending supply!
Although I don’t know what particular incident you are referring to, I believe it is wise to scrutinize who and how a company provides T&E gear to. There is quite often a high dollar amount attached to the manufacturing or resale of items from creators and vendor sales reps.
This article should be printed in a Harris Pubs mag. Only then will the info get to the people who keep doing this crap. But alas, Harris is no more….
That is one of the most polite and professional “eff you buddy” letters I have ever read. Classy response nameless incident, very nice.
Absolutely agreed.
Needed to be said.
So, you see, the puppy was like industry. In that, they were both lost in the woods. And nobody, especially the little boy – “society” – knew where to find ’em. Except that the puppy was a dog. But the industry, my friends, that was a revolution.
Lmao Billy Madison
Classic!
Harris publications died long before they went off the shelf. In the early years they were pretty good but like so much of the dead tree media they fadded away
I, unfortunately, feel like this article needs to go up on a 3 day loop. Additionally, if someone in industry agrees to send something out for free, patience is key. The freebies are at the bottom of the priority list only after the paying customers have their orders filled. Calling/emailing every 2-3 days can get you removed from the freebie list!
This gets even better. Apparently, “that guy” wasn’t even with the agency he mentioned but rather had buddies there.
But my buddy is a Navy Ranger SWCC sniper gunner! He’s gonna teach me to smoke tangos from a mile away with my Glock 32 while using your gear! WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM?
This is hilarious. Great response! I deal with product design education and we DO get free stuff sent to us and donated for students to reference and investigate (materials, products), but even then, the amount of official documentation to prove that we are a recognized department in a major university is exhausting but we never question doing it. We too, buy things FIRST and establish design relationships with many companies beforehand- then they MIGHT send free stuff, and many students then go on to become employees.
Sounds like some people need to take a business communications class.
Excellent tact and professionalism in that response.
I don’t have to deal with “free stuff” trolling much, but fishing for discounts is a constant thing.
“hi, just calling to see if I can get a discount.”
“a discount for what?”
“well for asking I guess.”
There is no harm in asking for a discount. The worst they can say is no, in which case you are no worse off than if you didn’t ask in the first place. As long as you’re polite and don’t push the issue, if refused, it doesn’t normally harm the relationship with the vendor either.
I agree. This shares little in common with asking for free things because of some (real or imagined) affiliation. Discounts are like price increases just going the other way….but both should be in the overall model.
The irony is, when you actually start doing reviews of gear/equipment/whatever, people seek you out and send you free shit…
I guess I would be in the “buy off the shelf and field it” category, and normally after 3-6 months of daily use deployed would email the manufacturer the goods and bads of something new. most mainstream stuff has minimal if any downsides, but two or three times I would receive the next version of the product of a coupon to purchase one at a discount. I’ve stopped sending feedback to companies for individual purchase year after a 300 dollar rig (that was great) from a big name needed substantial improvements to be used for what it was intended. I emailed back and forth several times with the tech folks about my suggestions, and low and behold four moths after release they re release the gear with the modifications suggested. I asked them if I could mail mine back to be upgraded, and they said no – I would have to buy an entire new one. maybe I am entitled, but after chewing up a few hours of my free time on a deployment with 18-20 hours days it kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I wouldnt have even minded paying for the changes, but instead I just paid the same amount to a different firm to make me exactly what I needed.
Better off spending the coin on one off shit made to fit your mission exactly, and have the flexibility that comes along with that.
but i can get you 900 likes on Instagram! Because everyone in industry knows that IG likes equates to sales- usually the 13 year old kids that “like” your photo have tons of money to buy products that are made in the USA with USA materials…