Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
In today’s Q&A, we are helping Eric understand how we decide what content to charge for, and what we give away in our online business.
Do you have a question you want answered on our podcast? We would love to help you!
Click here to ask your question!
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Let’s dive into this week’s question!
JOCELYN: Hey y’all! You’re listening to a Q&A with S&J.
Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside-down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let’s get started.
JOCELYN: Hey guys, welcome to today’s Q&A mini podcast where we answer your questions about online business. Today’s question is from Eric Walker and Eric says, “You give away so much of valuable, free stuff on the Flipped Lifestyle website such as tutorials etcetera, things that a lot of people would charge for. How do you decide what to sell and what to give away? Are there any criteria?”
SHANE: We’ve been on a string of easy names lately; have you noticed that? The last three people have been Joe, Matt and Eric.
JOCELYN: I know, thanks for that guys.
SHANE: Thank you for that; or people are once again – maybe they are putting in false names now that we actually can read instead of purposefully trying to stumble us over the names or something like that. All right, so let’s jump in to Eric’s question here. How do we decide what to give away for free and what to sell? Well, there are a couple of principles that guide our thinking on this and also just some more things that we have come up with on our own. The first thing you can always do when you are evaluating what you should charge for is, you can tell people what to do but you charge them to show them how to do it. For example, we can guide you through the process that you have to go through to start an online business. One of those things is, eventually, you’re probably going to need to start a website. So, I’ll tell you, you need to start a website, you need to have content on it, you need to get a logo made; these are all the things what to do, all the things you should do when you are creating a website. So people get a really good overview and a lot of people might be able to figure that out just from that list of what to do but then we can go back and we can create a product that shows you exactly how to do it. We just created a course that’s about to launch, I think, in about a week or two; by the time this podcast comes out, it’s probably already out there over at Flippedlifestyle.com and it shows you exactly how to set up a WordPress website. 20 videos, 10-20 minutes a-piece, and we go through every step. How to install WordPress, how to get hosting, how to write your first blog post, what you should be writing about when you start it. We actually charge to show people step-by-step, hold their hand, how to do something. Another rule that a lot of people go by is the ’90/10′ rule where you give away amazing content. 90% of everything that you create, you just give it away for free and then you hold back maybe 10% of the content. Maybe it’s that critical step, that thing that kinda connects all the pieces of the puzzle together. That’s what you sell. So you give away as much free value as possible. A lot of people might be able to only need that 90%, they can figure the 10% out but there’s always going to be a portion of your audience willing to go ahead and pay you for that 10%.
JOCELYN: It’s really important that you give people some valuable, free content because if you don’t, why would they be willing to pay you? If your free stuff is not very good, then they’re probably not going to jump and say, “Oh, I can’t wait to see their paid product.” But if your free product is really, really good, then they are going to say, “Wow, if the free stuff is this good, then how good is the paid content going to be.” So, we always sort of go with the idea of more rather than less when it comes to free giveaways. On my Elementary Librarian site, I give away lots of free lesson plans; I send them things on my email list all year long to make their lives a little bit easier, just to sort of build that goodwill with your potential customers. And the psychology of it, I heard this somewhere, I can’t remember if it was on a podcast or something that I read, where it said that when you give people stuff, they feel like they owe you something and so when you do – if you give, give, give, give, give, when you do need to sell them something, a lot of people are going to buy your product because you’ve given them so much and they feel indebted to you in some way. So, it’s not really like a trick, it’s just human psychology, it’s just the way that our minds work. So that is sort of the approach that we take when giving free stuff away.
SHANE: Another way you can go about this is to think about your audience and say, what’s the most common thing that people are looking for? What’s the most common problem they need solved and that’s a great way to say, that should be my paid product. Like, take these Q&As; we get hundreds and hundreds of questions about online business and if you notice, we are now through 54 of these Q&As. We’ve never had the same question twice. We get tons and tons of questions that we can go out and answer and we know that all of the answers to these questions are going to help other people in our online businesses. But when we see a trend, when we see like 50 people ask the exact same thing, like ‘How do I set up a WordPress website?’ or ‘How do I go about selling a digital product?’, ‘How do I actually create a digital product and then how do I get people to give me money and email that to them automatically, how does that work?’ When we see that same problem over and over again, then that’s a probably a good signal that we could create a product about that question and we have a large portion of our audience that is willing to pay for that to get that solution. So basically, it all boils down to this: first and foremost, the vast majority of everything you do in your brand should be giving people a lot of free value or at least a lot of very low-cost value. You’ve got to a lot for your audience to build that trust and show them that you are there to help them as much as possible and then once you find something that kind of resonates with your whole audience, you think it’ll be a great product that you can sell them, go ahead and create that and sell it to them after you’ve vetted that. Ask them, would this be something that you are willing to pay for if I were to solve this problem for you and then go ahead and create that product.
JOCELYN: Your free product is probably going to vary depending on which niche you are in, depending on whether it’s a book or a video, or whatever your audience relates to. Make sure that you are not just copying maybe what somebody else out there is doing; make sure that it’s solving a problem for your audience and one that could potentially lead to something that they might purchase from you.
SHANE: There’s also another great strategy that you can use when you are doing this is to give away pretty much everything for free; not even a 90/10 rule but actually tell people how to do things. But you can create products and other media that are going to explain it better. So for example, I could do a podcast that I would literally told you every step of the way how to use the Google AdWords keyword tool. I tell you exactly how to sign in, what menu you’re looking at, I’m very descriptive and I actually go through that and tell – so someone could literally put their headphones in, get in front of a computer and go through that entire process. You can tell everything. You can give away everything because most people are not going to see every single thing you do and then you can take that exact same content and put it another form of media and sell it. So let’s say I have a podcast that’s free, that shows you exactly how to use the Google AdWords keyword tool but then I make a video course that maybe I sell for 20 bucks where I also have the screen shots going along with what I’m saying. A lot of people will pay for that extra service. You can charge for that little extra bit and they’ll come in and give you money for that and then you are still helping everyone in your audience because you are actually giving out how to do it for free but some people want that extra hand-holding, they want that extra step. So you can build layers on top of your products to earn more money and make more money off of the same content and just give people different ways to consume it.
JOCELYN: All right Eric, what we are trying to say here is just experiment, try a few things, see what works with your niche and try not to stress over it because you can always change it down the road. That is all that we have on this one; hope that we’ll see you guys back for our next mini podcast, see you next time.
SHANE: Catch you on the flip side.
You can connect with S&J on social media too!
Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family! Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business. Help us by sharing the show!
If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Derek Smith says
I agree with you Shane & Jocelyn that the 90/10 rule is a good rule of thumb. I think giving away free information is very important, as I see many people try too hard to make a buck when they really have not engaged their readers. I think seeing the big picture of gaining a lifelong customer is much more important rather than getting a quick sale.