Free!
One of the most WELCOME and OVER-USED words you see online today.
Free is great, right?
After all, who doesn't want Free Training or Free Giveaways?
Who can argue that having a great Free “ethical bribe” can help build your list?
But FREE always comes at a cost.
I wrote about this in a previous post, The Fallacy of Free.
Here, I talked about how nothing is truly free. Either it costs money or time, but either way there are few things in life that are truly free.
Today, I want to make the argument that FREE can actually harm, if not destroy your MLM or Internet business.
I know this sounds crazy, but bear with me…
Why Should I Pay for It?
Free is everywhere online.
Free training, free downloads, free PDF's, free videos.
All great, right?
Maybe.
While it certainly is true that you can get some great free information online today, the truth is that the people providing this information are MARKETERS, and marketers make a living by getting PAID.
With me so far?
So while their Free Training is useful and informative, RARELY is it complete.
Good marketers always hold something back – more details and/or crucial instructions for applying the free information.
And who can blame them? It's how they make their living.
So here's the danger of free — it causes people to PAUSE and go search other options, looking for MORE FREE.
Rather than pay for information that could truly help their business RIGHT NOW, they go elsewhere, looking for someone else to provide them with information they need for free.
They never put all the pieces together because they don't want to pay for it.
And they LOSE in the end.
There's Just Too Much Free
It's hard to complain.
There's a TON of really good Free information online.
In fact, there's TOO MUCH FREE.
Newbie marketers are inundated with email after email promising Free Information that will transform their results.
Facebook is littered with Free Webinar offers that, on the surface appear to provide everything needed to get results immediately.
But it's rarely true.
And people go from email to email, webinar to webinar gobbling up free information every single day.
The trouble again is lack of a coherent plan, and…
FREE information without focus is merely a distraction.
And can result in a LOT of WASTED TIME.
Confused and dazed by all this free information, they lose focus, despair sets in and they give up on their dream.
Takeaway
Free information is good, REALLY good. But with a focus and plan in mind.
Don't allow the abundance of Free information to get you sidetracked from your goal, which of course if to build a profitable and self-sustaining home business.
And don't allow the PROMISE of FREE to stop you from paying for information when it will help you reach your goals and further your Success Plan.
14 replies to "How “Free” Can Destroy Your Business"
I always believed that the free stuff it’s not so good. In fact free stuff is mixed with good and bad things. You just need to select what is good and to capitalize.
So here’s the danger of free — it causes people to PAUSE and go search other options, looking for MORE FREE. Yes I do believe in this.
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I usually subscribe or download free offers to test if the tool, kit or service will be useful to me. By acquiring the free one, I could assess it without having to spend a single cent. If I am satisfied with the free one, I would willingly pay for more.
I strongly believe that anything worthwhile has a price; everything else is for free. Giving away for free may not work to the advantage of a business as expected. Thanks for sharing and spreading awareness.
I agree that the promise of pretty much anything “free” has got people sold the moment the “f” escapes your lips. Free is a great thing, and it’s good to indulge in it, but you need to know where exactly you’re going. Free doesn’t always mean a good investment. Free doesn’t always mean quality. If everything in life were free, would there be anything worth pursuing? I don’t think so. Thanks for the great read!
Hey Bob,
I agree whenever you visit a particular website or any web portal, a number of options pop in displaying what they can offer as free. Frankly, I believe that many of them are virus or some kind of spams. I believe that nothing comes for free, if you wish to attain something which is genuine and long lasting, you must pay for it. Thanks for writing on this niche.
I usually subscribe or download free offers to test if the tool, kit or service will be useful to me. By acquiring the free one, I could assess it without having to spend a single cent. If I am satisfied with the free one, I would willingly pay for more.
Hi Bob, you did a great job here. I agree that free can not be complete. From my own experience I can say a ton of free stuff are of no use. It is only useful when it comes through reality and after paying something. Nowadays I try to avoid free stuff. These are just time consumer.
Great post. Free is EVERYWHERE online lately.
Don’t even get me started on all the free stuff I have been in on. I see most people do that to build their list and I think that works, but I have seen some bloggers create a great product that they should have charged for. Then when they do finally make a product worth charging, it turns out to be not as good as the free information they offered before.
Now that’s a waste of time when you can’t get your value over to possible readers versus what they want when its free. I think it has its place providing they don’t spill all their secrets, but to give everything and the closet away is like through money out the door. Great post Bob! How are you and Rosemary?
But Bob! Exactly above where I am commenting, is your offer for a Free Part Time Entrepreneurs Success Kit! Well, I wouldn’t say getting free offers is a total waste as it is a way to find out more about what the author could share with you in their paid offers. It’s a sample of their work. So that’s not such a bad thing and you can learn some useful tips.
The part about “free” that I feel is destructive is when people use certain free tools that reveal their amateur status. These are tools that literally say “This is a free tool that you can use too” along with branding that is not one’s own. I’m thinking of free blogging tools, free website makers, free business cards, free traffic sites and more.
It costs money to get branding removed from Animoto [popular video making program] and many similar tools. My thought is to choose between using the tools without the branding (pay for it) or just not use that particular tool.
Thought provoking subject to be sure Bob. I confess I have mixed feelings about the free thing. On the downside – every once in awhile I consider yanking my “free” subscriber gift all together. Of course this usually happens after I get a flurry of sign up/download/unsubscribe activity. I’m working on a new subscriber gift so this has been on my mind – though I have changed my approach in recent months from giving away a stand alone gift that promotes my blog theme to a piece that promotes the sale of my books. It’s slowed sign ups a tad, but dramatically reduced that download/unsubscribe activity.
On the UPside – there’s a fair amount of grumbling (on the author side) about the damage Amazon’s free book promo does to sales – that may be the case for some. All I know is there is a funny thing that happens right after a “free” promo day – actual sales peak, sometimes dramatically. I ignored all “guru” advice and enrolled my first book in that program – and after my first free day, earned $200 in sales, and sales have been climbing ever since. To put that in perspective – the same experts report that a new author typically earns a whopping $100 total in the first y-e-a-r, and sadly some don’t earn a dime. So, at least in this case, I have to say free is a very, very good thing 🙂
Hi Bob. I couldn’t agree more. Most marketers ‘giving’ away training only give so much (unless they are training someone in their organization… hence getting paid in other ways). They always, always, always leave out the crucial elements which, unless you buy their offer… which is always there to ‘get the whole story’ renders time spent nothing but wasted.
The sparkly ‘free’ word is way overused and misleading to newbies who don’t know the benefit of properly investing in their education.
You got my vote on this one for sure!
Jayne