02/20/2006: "When Giving Away Advice is Profitable and When it's Costly."

Yesterday I told you that giving away advice on a board such as MarketingProfs.com is a good way to get business and exposure. And that's very true. But I want to expand just a bit about giving away your services.

Many people are under the delusion that they should get everything they can think of free on the Internet. They think that because the Internet started out as a socialist tool used by academics to exchange ideas. Then it expanded to a more capitalist tool but yet much remained free. Lots of news is free and newspaper subscriptions are down close to fifty percent.

But the Internet is now gearing up to become a 100% capitalist tool and that's a good thing. So giving away a portion of your services is good only to a point. The New York Times, for example, now charges for some news and popular columns. And the good ol' Wall Street Journal was never free. Good show!

I'm in business to make money. I'm not altruistic and anxious to give away my services because I'm a nice girl. Nice girls, after all, finish last. And even as a kid I sold lemonade to thirsty neighbor kids and I even made them listen to stories I'd written and have them pay for the privilege. So I'm not going to give away my hard come-by knowledge and skill.

But I will, in order to expose my business and my skills, give away just a hint of my value. A hint. Never the real stuff.

Most people love what they do. And they love to throw ideas around and show off their knowledge. But don't show off too much. You never get paid for what you give away. And, frankly, people don't value what's free. The more they pay, the more value they put on a product or service.

I recently paid $125 for an ebook. While I don't think it was really worth that much, I put more value on it than some of the books I pay $17 for . . . some that are perhaps worth a good deal more.

So here's my point. Join these groups. Give advice. Show your skills. But be selfish. Be smart. People should not expect to get a lot of professional help for nothing. Give away just enough to whet people's appetite for your skills or to show off your skills to others in the group who may be prospective clients. But don't be foolish and give away a lot of your time and effort. We are capitalists. We are not socialists. At least those who read my writing are capitalists. I doubt anyone reads a Hutcheson article who isn't a capitalist because I'm all about making money.

The naughty little boys in my day had a saying, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk free." Well, that was an ugly thing to say but boys can be downright ugly. Their point wasn't lost on the girls who were smart enough to get the boy across the Oklahoma line where you could get a quick marriage. The smart girls got what they wanted before the boy got what he wanted. My point? Don't give away the milk. Make 'em buy the damn cow. As a side note, smart girls today aren't all that interested in getting the bull. But I digress.

My old friend, the late Cecil Hoge, an excellent ad man and author, advised me to write articles and put them in the old CompuServe libraries. (This was in the early days --- pre-Internet.) He said it was an excellent way to get new clients. I did this in 1992. It worked then and giving away information works now. But give away just enough to give yourself exposure. Being selfish is okay. After all, no one will pay your mortgage for you but you. Remember that next time you're tempted to give away what you should charge for. You'll soon know where to draw the line.