You Must Sell Information To People Or They Won't Value It
Author: Thomas Christopher

Suppose you have vital information that will transform
people's lives. You want everyone to benefit. You're
afraid that if you charge money for it, some people will be
unable to afford the information, which is probably true.
So should you give away the information for free? Bad idea
-- you must sell information products, not just give them
away. "No price, no value," people think.

In this society, we are accustomed to paying for things.
Generally we believe that price indicates quality. To get
more, we expect to pay more. So if you give out
information without charging for it, don't expect people to
value it.

People are willing to make good deals, however. If the
price of something is high, people will love to get it for
a discount. If you really want to get the word out, set a
high price for the information, and let people steal it
from you. It can spread instantly around the Internet this
way. And for those people who are honest, you can
occasionally offer it at big discounts.

Consider those pitiable people who try to urge their
special knowledge upon other people -- the streetcorner
evangelists, the conspiracy theorists handing out their
pamphlets, the people holding their picket signs. They are
ignored and despised.

I met a man at a party who handed me an audio recording,
imagining that it would change my life. When I got away
from him, I threw the recording in the trash. I had not
the slightest inclination to have my life changed by him.
If on the other hand, he had been charging $98 for it, I
would have been curious about what made the information
worth that. And if I did indeed buy the recording, I would
certainly have tried to get my money's worth out of it.

I've met people at poetry readings, handing out chapbooks
of their verse. They say "Don't take it unless you are
going to read it." They'd do much better to charge a
dollar for it. A dollar would cover their costs of
duplicating it and would make people more likely to look at
it. Five dollars would be even better.

All this said, it is also necessary to give information
away, which is to say, to exchange the information for
something other than money. If you want people to sign up
for your mailing list, you need to give them something to
make it worth their while. If you want people to keep
receiving and to look at your e-mails, you need to be
giving them something that will make it worth their while.
In these cases, the exchange is clear to both sides, and
remember, human interactions are built upon exchanges, not
one-way donations.


About the Author:

For more information, visit
http://www.onlinemoneymakingopportunity.info/
a growing collection of ecourses, ebooks, and "minizines"
showing speakers, writers, and self-employed professionals
how to "monetize" the web. The collection is being gathered
and maintained by Dr. Christopher, a Colorado public
speaker and seminar leader.