People Buy For Their Reasons, Not Ours
I had a call recently from someone who said he’s afraid to market online because a lot of the information he wants to sell is already available for free.
I have always said, and most experts agree, that, “People buy for their reasons, not ours”.
And that is true.
So how should we look at this problem with a winning attitude?
First, nothing EVER sells itself. Just because you have it on your shelf or website, doesn’t mean anyone will buy it. Even if it’s free, most people will treat it as ‘free’ and totally under-value the information and possibly treat it as “worthless” because they got it for free!
Right?
Listen carefully,
“THERE HAS TO BE ONE OR MORE REASONS FOR THEM TO BUY IT.”
Got that? Read it again in case you flew by it and did not give that sentence the respect it deserves.
Second, you better give your prospects EVERY REASON you can think of to buy your product so they can pick the one’s that appeal most to them.
Third, NOTHING is really “FREE” anyway… (except maybe ‘air’).
Yes, there is a lot of FREE information on the Internet. But, is it really FREE? Of course not.
In some cases it’s already been paid for through advertising dollars. In other cases it will still cost you TIME to search for the information. TIME is even more valuable than money, if you ask me- once it runs out you just can’t make any more of it! But…you can always make more money!
I suggested to my young inquirer that people value information not just for the words alone, but also the way it is:
1. Delivered;
2. Formatted; and
3. Organized.
Some people like information delivered by ink on newsprint.
Some people like information delivered by sound waves from a radio. Still others like to read information in magazines or books or listen to information on audio tapes or read it on web pages.
People like information delivered, formatted and organized in many different ways, not just one or two.
The question he should be asking is: “Why should people buy my information on the Internet, over all the other available ways it’s currently being delivered, formatted and organized?”
Competition (even from those who ‘give it away’) is NOT the problem. The problem is creativity.
Your information does no good sitting on a shelf. Find a way to package it and the way your customer wants it delivered and make yourself a profit.
You cannot ‘lock-up’ content. Content is meant to be shared and, if you can, make a profit from it in more ways than one.
