Whenever new authors ask me why people aren’t buying their book, I tell them to just give it out for free.

With a book’s worth of information, you could create a handful of blog posts and dozens of podcasts.

But most people are scared to give away precious content for free, after all, books are one of those mediums where people have to pay to get information.

If your free content isn’t so good people will follow you, what are the chances that people will buy your paid content? When no one knows your name? Barely ever.

Sometimes you have to do things for free, but when you do things for free, you are taking the high road, the road where there won’t be any reward for a very long time.

But when things start to actually come together, then it becomes worth it.

Money is not the Only Valuable Thing

When we give out samples of our product, we are trying to win over by taste so that the consumer can hopefully buy it. Whether it’s through a Costco server or sending 300 grams of your product to the restaurant, the investment in sampling your product is generally worth it. If you were to send hundreds of samples out and got a one million dollar sale, then it’s worth it, right?

I’ve never paid to get someone on my podcast nor do I get paid for people to be on the show. Sometimes, people charge people for advice, but I ask for advice in exchange for having 5000 people monthly listen to them talk. The reputation associated with having your brand on My Food Job Rocks surprisingly has become a little bit valuable.

If you don’t have the reputation or the experience, most freelancers or artists will do the work for free in exchange for a referral or a testimonial. A testimonial can be a very powerful tool because it shows social proof that what you do is legitimate and has helped at least one person.

And social proof, or in this context, social currency is what you can exchange for cash. People recognize good work, but it takes time for that good work to spread. Good work spreads because good work is rare and people are always seeking people who do good work.

Make It An Act of Service

Someone once told me that the podcast I do is an act of service to the industry and I personally think that. I do this podcast because I want people to know about food science and the food industry and it’s helped a lot of people.

Good things happen to good people, so they say.

I’ve been reading a book about how to start a creative agency and one of the things they’ve mentioned is that when they work for non-profits, they change little to nothing. If their work is good, the message spreads.

Some customers are like that and this is a big issue for the buying power of large companies. When a large company asks to buy something, you have to bend over backward and maybe suffer a few compromises to get the sale. I’ve been on both sides of the fence and it’s a lot better being the big company calling the shots.

Overall, the value of reputation is a big deal and it’s a metric not many people think about, but they do it all the time. Though the only thing people seem to care about is seeing the numbers rise higher and higher, it might be more valuable just being a good person.

A lot of my friends send me people who need help because I’ve helped them so they think I can help their friends.

But what is considered an act of service? In my opinion, if you feel good about your decision to help someone out, and it makes the world a slightly better place through your actions, it’s an act of service.

Charge a lot for things you don’t want to do

Whenever someone asks me for advice, or wants to talk to me on a phone call, I either tell them that it needs to be recorded and showcased on the My Food Job Rocks platform or I say “It’ll cost $100 dollars”. Unfortunately, being in a hot startup and running My Food Job Rocks has exhausted my time.

Surprisingly in the last few months, people were fine paying me $100 dollars and it has happened multiple times.

Whenever someone asks me to do a project that takes more than a week, I charge a lot because I’m very busy. (My friends say I charge too little by the way).

Usually, people just ignore me or say that they’re “bootstrapping” but if they’re really bootstrapping then they should realize that an hours’ worth of advice for someone who’s done this before would save them at least $1000 dollars. Most people don’t understand the cost of making mistakes and that sets them back years. However, I understand the pain in spending money when you don’t have a direct ROI. I’ve been there.

But overall, if you want free content from me, I have hundreds of podcasts and blogs full of it. Hundreds of hours for you to consume in order of subject. People pay for convenience and if it is inconvenient to look it up, then think about paying.

This is also the same in your case. My first mentor gave me advice to charge a lot for a service while working because your time is valuable and helping this person cuts into your time, hence in a technical term, causing an inconvenience. Charging for your inconvenience will make you a lot happier.

The busier you are and the better your reputation you have, the better the leverage you have to charge a lot. The two are dependent on each other. You need a reputation to get better gigs, and you need to charge more when you have too many gigs and if you do a good job at your gigs, your reputation grows.

And maybe eventually, you can decide to do it full time.