As an online entrepreneur, you’ve likely been introduced to two competing ideas:
- You should put out everything you know and teach for free, including your best stuff
- You should not put your best stuff out, give only a taste and save most for your paying clients
It’s confusing to know which to follow!
I fall into the “put your best stuff out there” camp, and wanted to share a few of the reasons why. Here are four totally selfish reasons for putting your best stuff out there for free (besides good karma):
Attract an Audience
Putting out free content attracts people to you like a magnet. People are out there, searching for answers, solutions, and information on the internet – and your high quality content is a means of luring them in and adding them to your audience. The better it is, the better it will convert a cold searcher into a warm lead and engaged member of your audience.
Nurture Them
Once you’ve attracted someone in with great content, they still may not be ready to buy. Putting out high quality free content keeps them around, warming up to you, until they are ready to buy. We’ve all heard people need to know, like, and trust us to be able to buy from us – consistent high quality free content facilitates that process and lets them build a relationship with you until they see an offer they can’t resist.
Expert Status
Putting out great content establishes your authority on a topic. The more you show what you know, the more people can tell you know a lot. This positions you as an expert in their eyes and builds your credibility in your space. Your peers may even start to take notice of you and what you are doing, and you will emerge as a leader in your industry – this will open you up to more opportunities to increase your visibility like guest blogging, podcast guesting, and speaking.
Results Ahead of Time
Your quality free content also serves to give your potential future clients results ahead of time – before they are clients. This shows them you can help them – by actually helping them. There’s no “maybe they can help me” about it: they already know you can help them because you already did. This makes selling super easy as well: no convincing, manipulating, or ick factor, just make an irresistible offer and they will be on board.
