Hey guys, Rachel here.
I’m writing to you today about something I’m VERY passionate about.
See, I’ve been in internet marketing full time since 2006. And in that time it hasn’t been at all uncommon for people to write to me and ask me for some kind of “favor” – either a free product, or to work on results, or some kind of ridiculous discount.
Now, on services, I’m OK with a little bit of negotiation (sometimes).
But most of the time, this is just NOT cool. And I’ll tell you why.
Top 5 Reasons I Will NOT
Give You Anything For Free:
1. As a coach, how can I possibly help you succeed if I’m already empowering you to act like a victim?
I get all kinds of stories about deaths, illnesses, and other tragedies. I’m actually an EXTREMELY compassionate person and I DO care… but I also know that if I feed into these stories and let people be victims, that’s going to be their story. They’ll feel entitled, like the world owes them.
I do feel bad about tough stories… I’ve teared up more than once reading them… and I also think that nobody gets more than they can handle.
And quite frankly, I think if you want to change things around and succeed online, you’ve got to put in the work. Even if it’s hard.
And that includes the work of paying for my products.
Now let me make clear – you do not NEED any product I (or anyone else) has. If you have absolutely no money I recommend either starting out with the 30 Day Challenge . It’s a free 30 day lesson-by-lesson course where you can learn how to internet market, and it’s archived year round.
If you really WANT a product of mine (or anyone else’s), I recommend going the service route: selling articles, graphic design, VA work, offline marketing, or whatever else.
2. I’ve seen with tons of personal experience that most people do NOT value free.
One time I was on a marketing forum and read about how someone got completely screwed over. He bought a sales letter from someone for $200 or something, and the copywriter gave him and another customer the same 600 word article – even though one customer was in the IM niche and the other in forex.
The guy in the IM niche was complaining was so much about how he was a “family man”, how he scraped his money together to get this sales letter, yada yada yada. I felt really bad, so I contacted him and told him I’d write him a free sales letter (at the time I was charging $2k or $3k per letter).
He initially was very happy and spent 10+ paragraphs complaining about how he was scammed, and how appreciative he was of me. I was so happy to make him a little happier, and shot him my copy questionnaire. I told him to fill it out and I’d give him his copy within a week.
He NEVER sent it back.
Other people simply don’t consume the products I’ve given them for free (I’ve done it a LOT of times).
This isn’t to attack or say people are doing anything wrong… it’s human nature. Paid stuff implies more value than free.
3. The more people pay, the more they value things… and the more they IMPLEMENT.
I recently joined a $30,000 mastermind. It was freaking CRAZY of me – and WAY out of my comfort zone.
But you know what? I am listening to every single word the facilitator tells me. She says “Jump” and I ask “How high?”
I’m of the rationale that there’s NO WAY POSSIBLE I will spend so much money and then let it go to waste. That would be spectacularly awful.
And truth be told, some of the things she’s teaching us are things I knew long ago. I read them in $20 books. But READING and IMPLEMENTING are two different things. Since I’m so invested in this course, I’m doing the latter. It’s human nature.
(As I’m writing this, I’m thinking I should raise the prices on some of my products!)
4. If you really want something, you’ll do what you need to get it.
I strongly believe that if something’s meant to be yours, you’ll get it. Either the universe will conspire to get it for you, or you’ll flat-out work for it.
Actually, the ONE exception I’ll make on giving people things for free is if they show me they’re willing to work for it. I had one guy email me like 50+ times over the course of a couple months, begging me for help. It got my attention. Then I gave him a few ideas… and like magic, he implemented them. It got my attention. So I realized he was just hard on his luck, but persistent and willing to try… so I gave him a TON of free stuff, including access to my tech people. He TRIED.
I have a lot of family members and friends who want me to teach them about internet marketing. They see how happy I am, how much money I’m able to make, yada yada. They want me to teach them what I know. Instead of wasting my time from the get-go (been there, done that), I give them a litmus test. I tell them to go through the 30 Day Challenge. If they go through all 30 days (only one person ever has, out of 50+ people I’ve told) then I’ll be happy to give them unlimited consulting.And still… the majority just DON’T. So how bad could they really want it?
Actions speak louder than words.
5. I disrespect myself when I waste my time like this. And really, at the end of the day, if I don’t have self respect, what DO I have?
I don’t mean to sound brash or mean here… but like I said, I’ve tried going the free route a lot of times. Quite frankly, it’s much EASIER for me to say yes than to say no. I’m a people pleaser. I’ve given away thousands of dollars worth of products, sales letters… heck, I once even shipped a brand new Macbook Pro to someone on my list.
But at the end of the day, 9.5 times out of 10, it’s all in vain.
So I’ve finally realized – “tough love” really IS the compassionate thing to do.
Print 
PDF