I should add that my boss told me later today that he heard from his boss that the company did the same freebie thing after 9/11 and Katrina. I reminded him that this company also had several rounds of layoffs after 9/11 as a lot of the local
PR firms did too, while our company (pre-acquistion) boomed! I was in Europe during Katrina, but my clients sent in a lot of work then too. Crisis communications is how we shine. No need to give stuff away then. It's our chance to show off how good we are and no one ever left us because of price. There are no sales people left at my current company who were there before they bought out our old company. We were very small and only wanted about 5% of their business, but we got it and gave them a serious run for their money. So they fired all their sales people in the DC area, bought out our old company and told us to take over the DC stuff. That's why my boss gets a very long leash - they know we do well when left alone.