Last week our team offered a free sample of 10 leads to a European company that sells an app for Shopify stores and wanted customers in Brazil. The owner replied in under two hours that this wasn't what he was looking for.
Finding Brazilian merchants with the right profile, he explained, was something his team could do on its own with ChatGPT. What he couldn't do was reach those merchants first and find out which ones would try the app.
The conversation had started with a request for a free month. He was fine with the plan's price, but he wanted to test before signing up. We don't run free months, and the 10-contact sample is how we show our work before someone buys.
A request for a free trial tends to sound like a request for free work. His reply showed me the reason behind it: he wanted to see whether the audience would react before he paid. A contact list shows whether our team picked the right companies. To learn whether any of them wants to try the product, someone has to write to them, follow up and listen to the answer. The sample delivered the one part he already knew how to do.
He tried twice more to get the outreach before paying. First he suggested testing with the 10 leads and signing up if they became customers. Then he asked for a single warm lead, one merchant who wanted the app, and promised to sign up right after. We kept our rule that outreach starts only once the plan is active.
On Sunday he came back ready to pay, with four conditions. He wanted a 30-day pilot with no automatic renewal, and real outreach, because a contact list was the one thing he didn't want. He asked for a report with how many merchants the team contacted, how many replied and how many wanted to test the app. And he wanted the commission rules settled before payment, counting new customers only.
In that report request, he put the question our sample had left open into three numbers. We accepted all four conditions and set a report for every Friday. He asked for two more adjustments, and one of them came back to the same point: commission counts only for merchants our team contacted, backed by send records.
Today he paid for the pilot, five days after his first reply. No message goes out until he approves the first Portuguese texts. From then on, each Friday brings the three numbers he asked for. If no merchant wants to test the app in 30 days, he will know that too, with the proof he was after since his first email.
Before you offer a sample in your own business, write down in one sentence what the buyer doesn't know and can't find out alone. If the sample answers a different question, the buyer will turn it down, or accept it and still not buy.
And when a client asks for a free trial, ask what they want to see at the end of it. This one wanted to see merchants replying. A short paid pilot, with a report that counts those replies, settled the question the free sample had left open.