Is it wrong to sell information that is availaable free ??

[dean_holland]

Hey warriors

Quick question ...

"Is it wrong to sell information that is available online for free ?"

My reason is this, I have a product planned to take to market. This product will be both a written ebook and video tutorials.

But heres the thing, the information is available online for free. The free info I have found is not to the quality of the product I have planned but it is in basic form available.

so is it right to sell this ??

Im thinking most stuff is available free if you really search but a product is often convenient and hence it sells

Whats you thoughts ???

Dean

[lcombs]

Let me ask you a question...

Is there any information not available for free on the internet?

I look at it this way.

Any fool can grab a shovel and dig a ditch.
But, wouldn't you rather pay someone to dig it for you?

[ShayRockhold]

IMHO, you are not selling the information so much as you are selling the convenience of finding it and delivering it in a convenient way.

Like a convenience store: they sell the same thing you can get at Wal-Mart for half the price, but you pay a premium for the fact that it is easy to buy when you get gas or whatever.

[GerardWon]

I agree w/ Icombs... almost all info is free. You have gone through the trouble of making it available to those who didn't know where to find it.

[CurtisN]

It's perfectly fine as long as your product makes it more convenient, just like you said. I'm sure people would rather pay you instead of visiting a hundred or more sites for free info.

[jrailsback]

I agree with every reply. Aside from the convenience of providing the information, consider the perceived value of any product vs free information.

If you provide a lot of value, there's not a problem at all. People will buy if there's a high enough demand for it. Then just provide value at 10x-100x the price you're charging.

Example: your product is $37, provide tons of value perceived by the prospect to be at $370-3700. Does that make sense?

Give away free bonuses, videos, reports, etc. Make your deal irresistible.

[Steve Sanchez]

I agree. If you're charging for something, make sure you give way more than they expect. You'll always have those that are never happy, move on, life's to short. Most people will be happy if you over deliver. Good Luck.

[havplenty]

Originally Posted by lcombs

Let me ask you a question...

Is there any information not available for free on the internet?

I look at it this way.

Any fool can grab a shovel and dig a ditch.
But, wouldn't you rather pay someone to dig it for you?

Well said! Wading through the volume of 'free' information, itself can be costly when you quantify it. People will always pay for results that requires the least effort on their part.

[Hamida Harland]

Out of thousands of info products I've bought online I've rarely bought one that the information wasn't available for free *somewhere* online. I pay for information though to save me the trouble of finding it and collating it, so yes it's okay to sell information thats available for free.

[Roey Pimentel]

I agree with the above posts, and would like to add another concept - organization. Sometimes just organizing the same information for someone makes all the difference!

Peace,

Roey.

[Blondmoo]

A great way to look at this concept!

[JMB Marketing Group]

Well, in my experience, YES you can find info for FREE. However, you ONLY get a small sampling in one place. You can find additional information on a particular product / subject, but you need to look in MANY different places. Talk about a pain in the ASS! Not only that, you now need to make sense of it all. Talk about confusing (depending on what you're looking for)! To sum it all up -- a lot of time searching = $$$$ wasted if you could have found it all at once so that you could have started that project sooner rather than later!

So, I say, if you can provide the full McCoy, I say, YES! This is what people want. And, what people will pay for. For me, personally, it is worth paying for (and I'm sure others feel the same way as well)! That's why a lot of people have a Membership site as well. You can get all the unique information all in one place. Not only that, it is info that you can't usually find on the Web, even if you Google for the info!

Hope my input helped in making your decision!

I wish you success with this product.

JMB

[timbor]

Selling information is not a bad thing.. you are seeling the ease of gaining that information...

You are selling a time saving solution.. I do not think there is anything wrong with it..

[Helene Solinga]

What you are doing is called repurposing. It's perfectly legal and perfectly fine to do. Do you think all those best selling authors make up things from inside their head? No. They do research and repurpose it.

Also note -- anything written by the government (in the U.S. at least) is considered Public Domain and free to use and distribute and sell and do whatever else you want with it, (which these days would make this post banned).

So go knock yourself out and make money.

Regards,

Helene Solinga

[MichaelHiles]

Universities sell information that's freely available in any public library.

[dean_holland]

Hey !

Excellent everyone !! Thankyou

These were my thoughts exactly.. Like many have said I think if you had all the hours in the world you could research and find anything for free.. But the fact is im sure most would rather pay $xx instead of giving hours and hours of time away !!

Thanks all for your input !

Dean

[ShayRockhold]

Another point: Just because you can find the info on the Internet for free doesn't mean that everyone can. Some people are even Google-search challenged.

[Steven Fullman]

Your valuable info isn't *free*, Dean.

(I've been following your blog for a while,
btw...nice! )

Your valuable info isn't *free* because even
if you can find what you want without whipping
out your credit card, you still need to invest *time*
to find it.

No. Your valuable info is worth the convenience of
time saved...and that equals money well spent.

Steve

[Valdor Kiebach]

Hey Dean, like the blog.
I feel that you should think of it as selling your time in compiling the information and creating the product, why pay water bills when you can purify rain water, its the convenience of presenting the info in an easy to read / watch format.

[NewbiesDiary]

stick wit me here...

when my son was in grade one - so 5/6 years old - he would collect rocks from the garden at the school - he would then sell his rocks to the other kids so he had tuck shop money - now the other kids were quite happy to hand over their 20 cents each for these rocks and my son was a very happy kid (albeit very hyperactive from the crap he was buying at the tuck shop lol).

I got a phone call from the school complaining about master 5 doing this, telling me how bad it was bla bla bla!

Was it wrong - maybe. Master 5 had a goal (lots of crap from the tuck shop) and found a way to achieve it.

Did it matter that the kids could pick these rocks up themselves - not to the kids.

Moral of the story - oh who knows - they're KIDS - there's no morals to any stories - DUH just watch the Simpsons LOL

IMHO no it's not wrong to sell something that is available for free - I have a product exactly like that - and no-one has ever asked for a refund saying that it's available online, I've only had 2 refunds and they were 30 second refunds - you know the ones. But I do make sure my product also gives them waaaaay more than just the product - they get a whole system.

Hell most of the IM products are available for free - your paying someone for putting it all together into a followable system.

rant over

[Steven Fullman]

Stef,

BRILLIANT analogy.

As the dad to a "Master 7"...I see this playground
entrepreneurship every day.

Thanks,
Steve

Originally Posted by NewbiesDiary

stick wit me here...

when my son was in grade one - so 5/6 years old - he would collect rocks from the garden at the school - he would then sell his rocks to the other kids so he had tuck shop money - now the other kids were quite happy to hand over their 20 cents each for these rocks and my son was a very happy kid (albeit very hyperactive from the crap he was buying at the tuck shop lol).

I got a phone call from the school complaining about master 5 doing this, telling me how bad it was bla bla bla!

Was it wrong - maybe. Master 5 had a goal (lots of crap from the tuck shop) and found a way to achieve it.

Did it matter that the kids could pick these rocks up themselves - not to the kids.

Moral of the story - oh who knows - they're KIDS - there's no morals to any stories - DUH just watch the Simpsons LOL

IMHO no it's not wrong to sell something that is available for free - I have a product exactly like that - and no-one has ever asked for a refund saying that it's available online, I've only had 2 refunds and they were 30 second refunds - you know the ones. But I do make sure my product also gives them waaaaay more than just the product - they get a whole system.

Hell most of the IM products are available for free - your paying someone for putting it all together into a followable system.

rant over

[Scott Ames]

You can get all the coconuts and bananas you want free on some tropical islands, but I doubt many of us would go gather them when we wanted some.

On some forums users rationalize buying, refunding, then making products freely downloadable on the basis that information is free and/or is crap anyway. I wish they would try taking coconuts and bananas from WalMart with the same rationale.

[Dana_W]

What she said.

Everything that I talk about in Twitter Goldrush ebook is information that you could search on the internet and find for free, and then figure out by trial and error.

The value is:

1.) I compiled all of this information for people, so they don't have to go searching all over for it, and

2.) I am showing people what I have done myself, successfully, to get new clients on Twitter every week. So I have done all of the trial and error stuff and come up with a system - which saves my readers time, and gets them up to speed much faster.

The way I look at info-products is - if I use my common sense about the author and feel that I can trust what they say - then it's worth it to me to buy their infoproducts, because it will save me time and effort and prevent me from making mistakes, and it will get me earning money much faster.

[Dana_W]

What she said.

Everything that I talk about in Twitter Goldrush ebook is information that you could search on the internet and find for free, and then figure out by trial and error.

The value is:

1.) I compiled all of this information for people, so they don't have to go searching all over for it, and

2.) I am showing people what I have done myself, successfully, to get new clients on Twitter every week. So I have done all of the trial and error stuff and come up with a system - which saves my readers time, and gets them up to speed much faster.

The way I look at info-products is - if I use my common sense about the author and feel that I can trust what they say - then it's worth it to me to buy their infoproducts, because it will save me time and effort and prevent me from making mistakes, and it will get me earning money much faster.

[jgoffshore]

It is perfectly fair. I could search for a whole lot of info online taking hours of my time or I could buy it from someone who has done that for me.

I could dig my garden and tidy up the leaves or I could pay someone to do that for me.

I could clean the kitchen, vacuum the floors, polish the furniture, clean the toilet - or I could pay someone to do that for me.

Get my drift ....?

[Gorilla]

Everyone is giving you the correct way to look at this. This is great for you.

Let me supply one single, important caveat:

Just don't plagiarize.

Be careful there. Just because some particular type of info is available for free somewhere, it does not mean that those specific works are available for you to sell for cash.

I hope that makes sense.

I just didn't want you to get the wrong idea about what exactly is free and ethical for you to sell.

You can sell a type of info, but not any specific works unless permitted by the creator or author.

You want to be careful here because you would not want a relatively successful business to be ended with just one threatening letter.

Other than that, knock it out of the park!

...

[Anna Johnson]

Some terrific posts in this thread! Let's also consider this: 'free' information is not really 'free'. There is a cost involved in everything. One cost might be $27 for an ebook... another cost might be spending a day (or more) on the Internet hunting for the same information. That $27 is looking pretty cheap...

[Tsnyder]

Dean...

Here's a funny story... kinda...

I sold more than $100K of a product that included info that
was not only available free on the internet but that I had also
given away in various posts on an industry specific forum.

What I gave away on the forum was step by step how I implemented
that info for great profits.

Many people on that forum asked me to put it all together in a
comprehensive step by step "how to" course and sell it... so I did.

One of the critical elements in the course was a database that
is readily available to everyone on the internet. Here's the funny
part. During the time I offered the course several people posted
the link to the free database in my thread. Each time the link to
the free info was posted I got a spike in sales... lol

Go figure...

Tsnyder

[mookinman]

I sell a piece of info on how to make your guitar sound 1000 times better... it's all over the internet for free yet I make around £50-£100 a month from it. It's not much but free money, so I'm not complaining.

[warner444]

Absolutely notnothing wrong to sell information that can be gotten free. I buy that all the time. Most the information I bought probably could have been found free, IF I knew where to look and IF I wanted to spend (how much?, who knows) time looking all over for it.

[Adam Bshero]

Sell it!

If the people feel ripped off or already know the information your selling, then you'll get a refund request.

As already mentioned in this thread, everything can be found for free with in depth research. People buy for convenience!

[racso316]

agreed. if the people wouldnt have found the info without u telling them, u should charge

[TheMagicShow]

Although the info might be free, the time it takes for one to gather all that info is not free, time is money. You are speeding up the process and helping out the potential buyer, so it is not wrong at all.

[Scott Ames]

I might add that I just paid for some "free" software. The reason? The seller packaged it with thier knowlege and guaranteed that it would do the job for me. It was a heck of a lot of comfort knowing that I would have someone to lien on should I back myself into a corner.

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by lcombs

Let me ask you a question...

Is there any information not available for free on the internet?

I look at it this way.

Any fool can grab a shovel and dig a ditch.
But, wouldn't you rather pay someone to dig it for you?

Very well put!

[Floyd Fisher]

Dean:

Why not.

By buying your product, they are saving time. Isn't that a valuable commodity (sic) ?

-Floyd

[askloz]

not for long... you'll be removed soon

Originally Posted by nvyasn

woow completed 10

Originally Posted by nvyasn

hey i am still here?

Originally Posted by nvyasn

and still i am here

[sevenish]

Dean,

I don't think so.

I had a client a few years ago that had built an entire business by compiling certain data that is not only available completely for free from the US FTC, but is completely incomprehensible in its free state. He collected some hefty subscriptions by compiling the information into spreadsheet applications on a monthly basis. He then made it available to around 15 large clients who would then be able to get a comprehensive overview with ability to drill down into important details of the activity in a certain industrial sector for the previous month.

[sevenish]

Originally Posted by nvyasn

and still i am here

Buh bye Mr. Phisherman. Good riddance to you.

[youngnbold]

I do understand what you all are saying, but shoudent there be an adding of value to whatever you are trying to sell? Even though the added value in this case is gathering the information putting your own added anything in there would be a great idea!

*hypotheticly*

pardon my spelling... I am lazy

[LiveLife97]

I think it's fine as long as it's truly useful information.

Also, you're putting all the information in one place so someone doesn't have to go searching everywhere for it. You're saving someone time and effort. So really you're selling the convenience.

[ARSuarez]

Dean,

Absolutely not. As has been said, people don't pay for the information - they pay for the convenience. One of the business ventures I am embarking on is launched from this premise, also tons of information which can be found online, put folks will drop $150+ for a summarized and convenient form.

Just make sure you believe in the benefits of your product and sell away.

Regards,

Angel

[David]

Frpm the looks of it most of you guys haven't been around the WF since it started like I've been.

One of the first ebooks I had the privilge of reading was Allen's story about how he got the idea of this membership group we belong to. That ebook and the copy I read infected me with the marketing fever and I've had it ever since!

He did just that, complied a list of stuff anyone *could have* gotten for free and packaged it into the Warrior Group, which morphed into this forum.
Back then you had to pay to get access to the forum, you guys are lucky to get here for free.


Any body remember when we were on unisol.com ?

Originally Posted by dean_holland

Hey warriors

Quick question ...

"Is it wrong to sell information that is available online for free ?"

My reason is this, I have a product planned to take to market. This product will be both a written ebook and video tutorials.

But heres the thing, the information is available online for free. The free info I have found is not to the quality of the product I have planned but it is in basic form available.

so is it right to sell this ??

Im thinking most stuff is available free if you really search but a product is often convenient and hence it sells

Whats you thoughts ???

Dean

[jgoffshore]

Years ago a friend's central heating system broke down on Christmas Day. He phoned round the emergency plumbers and one agreed to come out and have a look.

He rummaged around in the cellar looking at the boiler and then took a hammer out of his toolbox and hit the boiler once. It spluttered into life, fired up and the day was saved.

My friend asked how much and was told £100 (it was 20+ years ago!). He was shocked - "£100 to hit the boiler with a hammer"! "No", replied the plumber. "£1 to hit the boiler and £99 for knowing where to hit it".

Knowledge is power - Knowledge is money....

[JoshuaWriter]

The better question here is "Is it wrong to buy something that you can get for free" haha

[ianternet]

no because - people are lazy they hate research. if you can cut research time literally in hlaf or more people will buy products.

I created ebooks and tutorials that are out there but for cheap but it gives direct access to what users are looking for. if it benefits then it will sell

[Tom Sheltraw]

I am asked almost weekly to help find information on the Internet by people that use the Internet. It seems that what is duck-soup-simple for one person might be an impossible task for another.

Providing information that is free could be compared to a real estate agents. Almost every home for sale has a sign in front of it so why do people pay big bucks for an agent to help them do something they could do for free, find a home. I know it's more then that but the point is obvious.

Ease and convenience is worth a lot to a lot of people.

Last point, why do we buy WSO,s when the information is free "Somewhere"?

Just my 2-cents!

Tom

[Tom Sheltraw]

I am asked almost weekly to help find information on the Internet by people that use the Internet. It seems that what is duck-soup-simple for one person might be an impossible task for another.

Providing information that is free could be compared to a real estate agents. Almost every home for sale has a sign in front of it so why do people pay big bucks for an agent to help them do something they could do for free, find a home. I know it's more then that but the point is obvious.

Ease and convenience is worth a lot to a lot of people.

Last point, why do we buy WSO,s when the information is free "Somewhere"?

Just my 2-cents!

Tom

[Pat Ordenes]

NOBODY is really selling anything new out there, but thats not a bad thing.
Its how you present information, how easy something is to digest, etc... thats what sells your product. THATS what makes a product worth buying

[BradCarroll]

Originally Posted by dean_holland

"Is it wrong to sell information that is available online for free ?"

If it is, then our universities are morally bankrupt for charging even a cent of tuition!