I’ve had conversations with friends in the consulting world who’ve told me: Don’t give too much away for free. If you do, your clients might not need you anymore.
And I think exactly the opposite is true.
I’ve made Not a Newsletter — 11 editions so far, totaling more than 36,000 words — free and open to anyone. I’ve shared documentation on how to set up dashboards in Google Analytics, calculators to help with subject lines, and guides to building newsletters and Courses — all for free. I’ve done interviews, shared lessons, and given as much away as I can.
The hope is this: In the long run, by being generous with my community, they’ll be generous back. They’ll share these resources with their colleagues. They’ll recommend my services to their friends. They might even hire me to work with them.
My bet is that they’ll say: Look at all that Dan’s done for us already. Shouldn’t we hire him and see what else he can do for us?
And here’s the thing: Even if every member of my newsletter list wanted to hire me, I couldn’t say yes to all of them. So by giving so much away, I have the opportunity to help as many members of this community as I can.
It’s worked for me in 2019, and I hope to do even more of it in 2020. I’m not sure if it’s the best way to build my business — but I know it’s the right thing to do, and doing the right thing is usually the right thing.
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That photo of a gift comes via Ekaterina Shevchenko for Unsplash.