How to get volunteers to work for your company

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Don Poffenroth and Kent Fleischmann get plenty of help at Dry Fly Distilling once their gin and vodka is ready for release.

That help comes each Saturday at Dry Fly's Spokane distillery, where groups of volunteers work three-hour shifts bottling and packing the products for shipping.

For most volunteers, it's more fun than work. They finish off their labors by having a free lunch, then enjoying what Poffenroth calls "sensory evaluation" of the Dry Fly inventory.

Which means the volunteers get three or four small shots of gin or vodka.

"Those volunteers find us," Poffenroth said. "It's grown popular entirely by word-of-mouth."

Dry Fly first announced it needed volunteers about a year ago. Within a few months, help was lined up solid for all of 2008 and 2009.

This isn't "free" help - there's obviously a cost for the vodka, but the cost to the distiller would be pennies. A very clever way to cut labor costs for seasonal work.

Via Fark.