Over the last couple of weeks there has been a big buzz about a webinar where a popular marketer gave away a lot of information AND then gave away his new book completely free.
I’m assuming that people paid the postage costs for the book, but I don’t know as I didn’t watch the webinar.
I’ve been watching the fallout online from that webinar.
People are saying that this has changed and revolutionised online marketing forever.
I am now seeing a lot of people talking about how they should be giving away ALL of their best information, such as knowledge and advice, for free.
I disagree with this.
And the reason why I disagree with this is that those who are saying that you should give everything away for free are missing the most glaringly obvious points which are:
1 – It is easy to give away everything when you have millions of pounds in the bank already like the chap who hosted the webinar.
When you don’t know where your next pound is coming from and you need the money, giving everything away for free is foolish.
2 – You can give all of the information away for free only when you have a follow up service or product which is where you will make money.
You will not make any money as an information publisher if you give it all away for free, but you will make money if you are agency that does specific work for clients.
For example, if you build websites for a living, you could give away videos and eBooks that teach people everything about building websites.
Some people may take that information and build a website themselves; others on the other hand, will take a look, think that it is too much like hard work and decide to hire you to build the website for them.
From what I can see, the guy who gave his book away along with a stack of business information during the webinar mostly buys up businesses that are making £1 million and grows them to make £10 million. That is how he now makes his money.
I don’t know for sure, but he may hire his team out to do that for clients. If he does, that is a premium done-for-you service that will cost tens of thousands of pounds.
He doesn’t need to make his money selling books.
It has been said that this is part of his master plan.
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By giving his book away for free which teaches people everything they need to know to grow a million pound business and have those people on his email list, he is cultivating a crop of businesses that he can buy in the future or sell his premium done-for-you services to.
So to be absolutely clear, you can only give EVERYTHING away for free (information wise) when you have a premium done-for-you service to sell… otherwise you will not make any money.
Unless you are selling a specific premium done-for-you service or have all the money you need in your bank, giving everything away for free simply means that you won’t make any money.
Yes, it is possible that you could give away everything for free and position yourself as an expert or become a popular influencer and get invited onto podcasts, radio & television shows, and be written about in magazines and newspapers which could result in paid media work… but that’s a long shot.
And if you don’t already have enough money to pay your living costs and put food on your table, you’ll end up broke real fast.
I absolutely agree that people should give useful and valuable information away for free…
But it should be done as part of a plan to bring people into the business where they are offered products to buy.
Giving stuff away for free is a powerful way to grow a business… but if there are no paid-for products or services to follow it up, there is no business.
You are just a very generous person who gives stuff away for free. People will love you for it… but you will starve.
I suggest that you don’t give everything away for free, give some of it away and sell the rest.
I can assure you now, the guy who created a big buzz in the marketing world giving everything away for free didn’t actually give everything away for free.
He gave what he needed to give away as a way to grow his business even more, which is different for every business.
Start small and grow… and you can only grow when you are making money.
Kind regards.
John Harrison.
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