Am I crazy to give away free plumbing advice on my blog? Will that sink my company? –@OconomowocPlumb
It will make your company a huge success.
I’ve made a good amount of money on five different occasions. (I’ve also lost a good amount of money on at least 15). But the one thing in common on all five occasions is that I gave away free advice.
In my first company I sold, Reset, Inc. our job was to make websites for companies. The way I landed almost every customer was by spending time with them and giving them complete free advice about how they could improve their website. On some occasions I even recommended competitors. On other occasions I never got the client. They took my advice and did it themselves. Heck, we lost our biggest client that way at one point (until they had to come back for more “free” advice).
Let’s not forget: the only thing Google ever does is give out free advice. You can say to Google, “I have Hepatitis” and Google will say, “I can’t help you but here are ten of my competitors (other websites) who can help you.”
Then when you have another problem who do you go back to? The source of the fount of free advice: Google.
The Bible says, “Ask and You Shall Receive.” There are two parties there: the person asking, and the person being asked (who then does the giving). The person being asked (in the Bible) is God. I’d rather be in the position of the person being asked then the person asking.
When you emulate the properties of the person/God being asked then your business will grow faster than you can even handle it (as happened with Google when their free advice became the best on the planet).
So Give and you Receive http://bit.ly/fi1mHC should be the rule to live by. In fact, it’s the title of one of my favorite posts I’ve written.