Is Free Hurting Us?

Hi Tim

I'm not sure where your problem lies (I haven't seen your $27 offer) but I do know that giving something away for free should not hurt anything. If you haven't gotten any sales then it is becuase of something else. PM me a link and I'll have a look.

On the other hand free advice is always futile. If the person acutally uses the advice, especially from here, they will get results. But people struggle to actually use advice they pay for, let alone that which they get for free. If they don't want to use it, that's up to them, but you can't get hung up on whether they use it or not.

Try selling more products on the front end rather than services. Sell an actual product and have the service included as a bonus. It is the same as the old hard product vs soft product arguement: A critique of your site may be far more valuable than an ebook, however people will not pay for it as easily as they will pay for an ebook.

I don't see this as much working locally... I can spend 30 minutes on the phone with someone, telling them how to increase their business, and at the end of the call I simply ask if they would like me to do up a proposal for them etc.

I always get a yes. Nobody ever says no to writing up a free proposal for them, telling them what I can do and how much it will cost.

And out of all of the people I do proposals for, so far every single one of them has turned into a client. Why? Because my proposals WORK.

Its all about giving away "part" of the solution, but not all of it. I agree, critiques might be a hard sell right now in the forum, because people believe they can get it for free right here.

But - and this is just a suggestion... What if we all talked to the admin, and came to an agreement. With every critique we give, we can give the asker a PARTIAL answer - and say "If you want some more detailed tips, click here." - Give them a link to a salesletter and an affiliate link where they can PAY to get the rest of their critique, with part of the sale going to the WF. Set your own fees, etc. as long as 50% goes back to the forum.

Then people are still getting some free advice, and if you give good advice you can be rewarded for it with a small payment. Then, work that into a system so you can close those prospects for a rewrite.

Am I way off base here, or might this work?

- Cherilyn

I agree, Dorothy. I have no problem in helping people with some critiques... I mean, the reality of it is, some people really can't afford a copywriter. Some can only afford a couple hundred dollars for a copywriter. But there are copywriters on here who are charging thousands of dollars, and doing critiques for free to help them out.

It used to be, you could post a critique and get some PMs asking for advice, and maybe one or two once in awhile asking if you could do a project for them. Now the critiques have turned into a free copywriting service.

I agree, we should continue helping those who simply can't afford a copywriter yet. But there should be something in it for those of us who spend hours each day offering up our advice and knowledge at no cost. Many of us charge hundreds of dollars for a critique outside of the forum, and there should be a way to monetize all of the work we put into keeping the critique requests filled.

Not only would that attract better critiques, because the copywriters who have exhausted themselves giving out free advice may come back, but the people requesting the critiques will value the advice they get more if they have to pay for it - even if payment is optional, and inexpensive.

I mean, even just bring back the "Buy me a Beer" function - something...

- Cherilyn

My thoughts on the matter:

We shouldn't put a limit on the free advice we give. The fact of the matter is that it's one thing to tell someone what's wrong with a letter... but it's a whole 'nother ball game to fix the critter.

If you would rather not volunteer your valuable time for free, I totally get that. But to restrict what can and cannot be said in a forum (keeping in mind that critique responses aren't usually obusive) comes across to me as a bit unsporting.

Some of the best advice I have ever gotten I got from Vin Montello. Obviously he doesn't have any problems getting paying clients.

Having said all that I agree that a "buy me a beer" function would be great. Some kind of "donate if you want to" function, in any case.

With regards to your offer, Tim, it may just be a case of you "fishing" in the wrong spot. Many of your potential prospects may not understand the value in your offer vs. a critique in the CW forum here.

The difference, of course, is that here you get a crap-tonne of useless (even counter-productive) advice, whereas the GOOD copywriters (such as yourself, Cherilyn, and Dorothy) give powerful advice.

Of course, we can't make people see that... just as we can't make them understand that good copywriters charge what they do for a REASON.

IMHO, the WSO forum has gradually turned into a crazy "get rich quick" fest with few of the offers being any good. There's still great ones there, of course, but they are a lot harder to find than they used to be.

Maybe you would be better off offering this somewhere else... not sure where/how though.

Kind regards,

-Dan

Hi John,

A couple of points:

First of all, I meant free for the client, not for the copywriter. Obviously it does take time to do a critique, time that could be used in paying pursuits, as you pointed out.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at in the rest of your post... I've read it several times, and still can't grasp the crux of what you're trying to say. If you have the time and inclination to rephrase it for dense brain, I would be grateful... although I understand if you would rather not.

Kind regards,

-Dan

There's only one way to really test any copywriting and that is to test it. Most of the time, it's the really "stupid stuff" that converts really well.

Learning to distinguish between valuable advice and "noise" is an important business skill and maybe failing at it a couple of times is the best way to learn?

As for free...if you provide enough value in the "free" then people will automatically want more. Free is only hurting us if "free" holds back. You need to give away real value and make people want more.

Give and you shall receive is pretty much the principle upon which internet marketers thrive. I have found that the best marketers don't just give stuff away for free. they give you value by giving you a "result" for free and in doing this they increase the desire for more.

So no, free is not hurting us

Using a free talk to provide a free proposal that works, that sounds remarkable. As for critiquing, a copywriter is free not to do it so what is the fuss? I am not an experienced copywriter but have read over 100 sales pages, most of them functional, and will be writing a sales page some time after mid-July.
It would be useful to provide a greenhorn like me about 50 URLs which are classified and then create a sales letter.

Hi,

I think taking a long term view on this. I'm starting out in the Internet Marketing business. I can't afford to have someone write my sales copy, so I do it myself (now I know we could get into a discussion about how crap that approach is and how much money I'm losing etc). I haven't posted to this forum asking for reviews of my sales copy. What I'd like to think is that if I did, and I got some good feedback that helped me make some sales (please just 10 bucks would be nice), the first thing I would do is outsource my sales copy work to someone that can help accelerate my business. I don't mind plodding along at the moment because I've run out of money, but when the money does come in, I would prefer to focus on other aspects of the business.

So, I guess what I'm saying is. If you offer help to people when it's needed most (and of course you'll always get people taking advantage), you'll likely to get repaid in the long term.

Best regards, Lee.