In the year 2012, I was angry about a particular thing in society, so I poured my anger into a book. I really wasn’t expecting that book to sell many copies. In fact, I was expecting a lot of criticism and hatred because what I was about to write against has been going on for over 150 years.
Anyway, I wished to document my opinion. Who knows, maybe the next generation would listen to me if everyone today rejects me. I started writing and by 2013 my book was ready for sale. I started selling on Facebook and later on my website. Surprisingly, many people liked my book, and I was making some money from the sales. But something is about to change-In the year 2015, I started giving the book out for free, yes, 100% free. So instead of people paying for that book, all they have to do is to download it on my blog. Then, the miracle happened.
By giving away the book, I started making 10 times more money than I was making by selling the book. How is that possible? That’s a simple trick I’ll be explaining in this blog post.
Now let’s get started. The one simple trick the rich use to make a lot of money is by giving out the value first, if possible, for free. You can see this everywhere and I’ll soon give you some obvious examples. Let me share my personal experiences first. As I was telling you about my book, I went from selling a few copies every month to making a lot of money simply by giving out for free what I was selling. How is that possible?
Here’s the trick. To make a lot of money, you need two things; First, attention, and Second, trust.
These two things are very difficult to get. People’s attention is divided into a million things, so they are not willing to give you a minute of their time. For you to earn people’s trust too, that’s gold, as most people don’t even trust their spouse. How can they ever trust you? Now we have two problems; how to get attention and how to earn trust.
I have a simple trick that can solve the two problems and that’s placing value ahead of money or even if possible, giving a valuable thing away. Let me explain the two tricks.
First, if possible, give away a very valuable thing. Because it’s free, you’ll get people’s attention, as we all love free things. Because what you’re giving away is truly valuable, people will trust you. When people trust you, you’re rich because they will be willing to pay you for any other thing you’re selling.
In my case, after I noticed that a lot of people liked my book, I decided to give it out for free. Thank God for the internet. It doesn’t cost me anything if a million people download my book. Now, after you reading my book and say, “Wow! This is the best book I’ve ever read”, I’ve got the two important keys to wealth; attention and trust. With these two things in my possession, I can literarily manufacture money. I can ask this multitude of people who have given me their attention and trust to give me money and they will joyfully do so. I can ask them to buy my other books. I can sell them a course. I can even make some of them partner with my other business projects as investors. In fact, I can get them to campaign for me if I want to be the president. There’s virtually nothing I can’t get by getting people’s attention and trust.
Now let me give some examples you see every day.
Facebook is a wonderful platform. Through social media, you can stay connected with your high school friends, make new friends, and communicate with people you care about for as much as you want and you don’t have to pay for such a great service. By giving you such great services for free, you’ve paid attention to and trusted social media and that’s why you visit Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp every day. Because you’ve given your attention and trust to these platforms, the site owners can get whatever they want from you, legitimately. That’s how Facebook and other social media make billions of dollars every month.
Let’s see another example. It’s absolutely free to search Google or watch YouTube videos, right? But that’s why billions of people can give their attention and trust to these platforms and that’s why the owners can make too much money.
So all these are technology companies and it’s easy to do, right? What about physical products or services? Can we use the same trick?
Well, one of the greatest marketers ever in the world is Claude C. Hopkins. Even when there was no internet and technologies as we know them today, Hopkins pulled many companies from several industries from obscurity to national fame and prosperity by using a simple trick he called sampling.
Sampling is giving a part of your products or services away for free. In his words, Hopkins said, “Sampling always pays for itself”. But sampling will not only pay for itself. After paying for itself, sampling would have got the two most important assets anyone needs to be rich and successful and those are; attention and trust so the marketer can turn those two assets into anything else they desire.
That’s the trick the rich use to make a lot of money. The opposite is what poor people do. Most people who are poor today are poor because they are stingy. They want to have their reward right away. They don’t want to plant and wait. They don’t want to give before getting. You have to be willing to give and wait before the reward.
So how can you apply this?
First, understand that the two assets you ever need to be anything, either a millionaire or the president of the United States are attention and trust. Don’t ever forget that. There’s no third thing; attention and trust. You need people to pay attention to you or your product, and you need them to trust you and the product.
After knowing this simple truth, the next question is, how can I get people’s attention and trust? There are a few other strategies people use but the simplest of them is what I’ve explained earlier; give people free value first, and they will give you their attention and trust. With their attention and trust in your possession, you can legitimately achieve anything.
In some cases, you may not be able to give out your product or service for free. What you have to do here is to be sure you create something truly unique and exciting. If what you’re bringing to the table is truly unique, people will naturally pay attention to it. That’s what Seth Godin calls the Purple Cow. Imagine seeing a purple cow. Since you never see any cow with the purple color before, you’ll be tempted to stop, meaning you’ve given your attention. If after you stopped, someone signals to you that you can come closer, you’re likely to do so since you may never see a cow like this again. If after you move closer someone tells you that you can actually be in the possession of a little purple cow, since that would make you special among your friend, if you love cows before, you’ll want to buy a little purple cow.
So in the case that you can’t buy people’s attention by giving away your product or services for free, you can get their attention and trust by creating something super unique.
Again, let me leave you with this; your goal in life is to get people’s attention and trust. You can use some free offers or create a unique product or service. That’s the trick. If you can figure out how to get people’s attention and trust, you can achieve anything: wealth, power, or success.
Thank you.