When technology companies use their own products, it’s commonly called eating your own dog food.
Why dog food? I don’t know. But pour me a big bowl of Gravy Train.
A few days ago, I posted to my Newvine Growing Facebook page looking for people to help me beta test a new service:

I am testing a new service offering and I’d love to find a few guinea pigs to help me.
I’d like to offer quick-hit consulting sessions, just 90 minutes start to finish, where we review your business goals and look at how well your marketing communications lines up with those goals.
Are your website, email newsletter, social media, brochures and the like telling the right story to the right people to help you get where you want to go?
I plan to charge $300 for these intensive work sessions, but if you help me refine the format and give me feedback on how to improve, I’ll offer you half price.
If you get one decent idea, could you increase your sales by $150 to make that time pay for itself?

Within a few hours, two people signed up — and if you’d asked me to make a list of the 50 most likely people to pay for my strategic review of their marketing, I don’t think either would have appeared.  I’m excited to work with both of them. It’s a happy surprise. So before I’ve even done my first session, I got a great reminder not to presume to know who will buy. Just put the message out there and let the customer decide.
I was talking with a longtime friend recently about my marketing consulting. He asked me what kind of consulting I do, and it made me realize that I could do a better job of letting friends and family know what I’m selling. I shared the information about this service on my personal Facebook page to see if anyone from my personal life might need help with marketing.
Even though I’d posted to my business Facebook page, my personal Facebook page and my Twitter account, I didn’t assume everyone had seen it. I sent a few personal emails to people I’ve talked with about marketing over the years and I got one more sign up. He follows me on Twitter and  is a Facebook friend, so he had two other potential ways to see this message, but a personal invitation can be more meaningful than a general  announcement.
I might be running these quick-hit workshops, but I’m also learning some things along the way. Which makes them even more valuable than just the fee I’m charging.
Colleen Newvine Tebeau is a reporter and editor who then earned her MBA at University of Michigan with emphases in marketing and corporate strategy. She is a marketing consultant who helps small and midsized organizations with strategy and tactics, including social media and communications.

Related articles

• How to Create a Beta Community for Product Testing (socialmediatoday.com)
• Only 25% of Yahoo Staff “Eat Their Own Dog Food” (tech.slashdot.org)