What Can You Give Before You Get?

By Shannon Mattern, pricing strategist and creator of the Package Matrix™

I’ve had so many people ask me, “How do you make money when you give away so much for free?”
Answer: Affiliate commissions. But I actually don’t make that much money off affiliate commissions in the 5 Day Website Challenge – my goal was to build my email list through building trust by providing value – not building my bank account.
Providing value is the best way to build an audience, build a customer base, and build a strong foundation for your business.  I’m giving away something for free that helps people tremendously. I get emails from people every single day telling me how much the 5 Day Website Challenge has helped them get so much farther along on their path to reaching their goals. And they tell me that they share it all over the internet.
So am I giving away my training for free? I’m not exchanging it for money, but I’m certainly getting a TON of value in return. I’m building a loyal base of potential customers so that when I have something to sell they already know, like, and trust me. They’ll know that whatever I’m offering is going to deliver value, they won’t have to guess whether or not I’m the real deal!
Personally, sometimes I think I  went overboard creating a 5-hour long free video training to teach people how to build their own WordPress site. You don’t have to create something as in-depth as I did to solve a problem for your clients!
In Day 6 of the 30 Day List Building Challenge, Nathalie talks about coming up with a solution to a common problem faced by your target audience.
Your freebie may be something as simple as a PDF of 10 tips of really actionable, valuable content. It might be a free consultation. It could be a video training. But think about one problem that you can solve for people and how you might be able to deliver that content to your customer online. Share what you come up with in the Entrepreneurial Rockstars Facebook group or in my Facebook group, the WP+BFFs.
I’d love for you to connect with me while I’m re-taking Nathalie Lussier’s 30 Day List Building Challenge. You can find the link to the challenge under the List Building section at www.wp-bff.com/resources.
I also just released a MailChimp master class. MailChimp is a program you can use to manage your email list. You can find out more about it at www.wp-bff.com/mailchimp.

Shannon Mattern is a pricing strategist for experienced service providers, consultants, and agencies, and the creator of the Package Matrix™. She’s also the founder of Web Designer Academy, where she has spent a decade helping women web designers move from undercharging to premium pricing, and where she developed the offer framework now used by service providers across industries.