I received two lessons in the Gift Economy back in the mid 1990's that have stuck with me ever since.

Back when The Cluetrain Manifesto was new, the concept of the Gift Economy was hard to wrap one's mind around. Today, it's old hat, but it's still hard for some to take it to the next level.

Of course you should blog and tweet and post so potential clients know who you are, what you stand for, and what you think is important. Of course you should be transparent as you can about your products and services.

But you should also be as transparent as possible about as much as possible in order to serve your customers and your prospects.

It starts with pricing.

"On no, we can't show people our price before we've had the chance to fully explain our value!"

If your value is not abundantly obvious, your problem is not your pricing, it's your proposition.

"On no, we can't publish our price because our competitors will see it!"

If you think your competitors don't already know your price you don't hold your competition in high enough regard.

Ask yourself; Do you already know their price? If not, your problem is not their secrecy but your lack of determination and imagination.

Lesson One: Automated, Real Time Disclosure

My first lesson came from a small printing company that truly understood customer service.

They posted their printing press schedule on their website to help customers and would-be customers get a handle on delivery dates. Their real-time view of their schedule showed their production availability, either open (green), moderate (orange), or tight (red). Customers with jobs in-plant were invited to review the progress of each job and communicate directly with the people doing the printing — without a password.

I went to their office to interview them as a leading-edge user of the World Wide Wed.

“But that’s so out in the open,” I marveled. “I understand the value to your customers, but aren’t you worried that your biggest competitors can monitor your production schedule?”

The company owner hit a speed-dial key on his speaker phone. When his biggest competitor answered, he said, “Good morning. I’m looking at a run of 25,000, 4-color, 18 by 24 posters on 80 pound, single side gloss. Is that something you can get out by the end of next week?”

It took about 15 seconds for the voice on the other end of the line to describe just how busy they were, when they could get the work done, and how much extra a rush job would cost.

“That’s how hard it is for me or anybody to find this information. The only difference between me and him is that I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to answer the phone. And our shop floor control system updates the website on its own.”

Radical transparency.

Customers before fear.

Lesson Two: Secret Sauce and All the Ingredients

The next lesson came from an astonishing conference presentation given by the late Eric Ward three years before Google was founded.

Eric proposed that inbound links to your website might be more important for driving web traffic than the words on your page.

His consulting practice was made up of educating companies about the value of inbound links, helping them reach out to establish more links (sort of a public relations undertaking), and monitoring and maintaining established links. Very straight forward.

Except that it wasn’t.

It took a fair amount of knowledge, a certain skill set, and a healthy number of tools to perform all of the tasks, track all of the minutia, and keep a calendar on getting people to respond.

Eric didn’t have a PowerPoint deck; he had an HTML page. This was kind of exciting in and of itself back in the day. Eric was the only speaker who asked for a live connection to the Internet. This HTML page was on his server at home and was live online. Brave.

The page was an outline of the work he did for clients. Each step was clearly enumerated and followed by several links to the interactive tools he used to get the work done.

Eric stepped through each task and showed a demo of each tool. The audience was rivetted. They were taking notes like crazy. Eric was opening the kimono like nobody had ever seen.

At the end, the first questioner asked Eric to repeat that name of one of the tools he referenced.

Eric declined.

“You don’t need to write down all the tools,” he said. “Just go to this page on my website and all the live links are there,” and he pointed at the screen.

There was a moment of silence while the audience took a moment to realize and fully understand that Eric was publishing his business model, his methods, and all the tools he used — for all to see — for free.

Then there was thunderous applause.

I went up to the stage to congratulate Eric on his masterful presentation and brilliant Gift to the audience. But that would have to wait until the speakers’ dinner that night because Eric was inundated with people who wanted him to work for them.

He explained what he did so clearly and so generously that people understood the depth of his knowledge, the amount of work involved, and the value of having him take on this task on their behalf.

He gave it away and it came back tenfold.

The Free Hand Wins

Being generous isn’t just that “it’s better to give than to receive.” Being generous stimulates a need for reciprocity and reveals how your dare to share is stronger than your desire to acquire. That abundantly communicates what a working relationship would look like.