CHAPTER 43
THINK FREE FIRST
Everybody likes free stuff.
No matter how fantastic you believe the quality of your content and information to be, you should strongly consider giving away all of it or nearly all of it entirely for free. If you don't, someone else will anyway, eventually.
I've heard the phrase, “Always be lowering the free line,” used to describe this mindset.
Whether you like it or not, customers today expect a whole lot more from you than they ever have before. While you may consider that bad news it's actually a great opportunity for those who understand the power of information and the viral power of free.
FROM FREE TO FAME
The power of the word “free” eventually led my friend Brian Wampler to partnerships with musical legends like Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, and dozens of other famous musicians and bands that you'd likely recognize.
The story: For several years my guitar-playing buddy Brian and I worked on houses together, fixing up junkers using loans and investment money from our parents. He had serious construction skills. I mainly did the grunt work.
Neither of us enjoyed this type of work, but we were trying to supplement our income so that we could each work on our true passions online. Luckily for us, we stopped buying houses and started focusing online!
His true passion was guitars and more specifically the tiny niche market of guitar pedal mods (if you've never heard of guitar pedal mods don't worry—it will all make sense in a minute). Working together ...
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