Last year, I read a book called Veeck as in Wreck, by Bill Veeck, who was one of the most innovative and influential owners of a major league baseball team in the history of the sport.
Veeck was a born promoter and an intuitive salesman.
He managed to sell out game after game by introducing spectacles (fireworks, before any other baseball teams had ’em), schemes (a dwarf playing as designated hitter), and creative giveaways (live lobsters, a horse). But Veeck drew the following line in the sand:
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I do not believe in giving away tickets. Tickets are the one thing I have to sell. To give them away is to cheapen the product I am selling. If an organization writes me for tickets to auction off as part of a fund-raising program, I’ll send a cash donation instead. If they write for a couple of tickets to give away as a door prize, I’ll send something that will serve the purpose at least as well. No tickets.
I’ll take care of 25,000 at a clip as our guests, yes. I’ll give large groups of tickets to organizations like the Boy Scouts, yes. But always to a particular group for a particular reason at a particular time. Because here the effect is precisely opposite. When a whole group is given tickets, the day at the park becomes a great event to be anticipated and remembered.
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Maybe you’re not as intuitive as Veeck, and cannot see quite why it’s ok to give away 25,000 tickets but not to give away a couple tickets.
Whatever. To me that’s not the point of the above.
The point to me is Veeck’s underlying motivation. On the one hand, “don’t cheapen the product.” On the other hand, make whatever it is you are offering a “great event to be anticipated and remembered.”
In other words, sell things based on their merit, on the value they deliver, not the fact that they are cheap.
Ironically — I read this somewhere but I cannot remember where — it can better to give away something than to cheapen it by discounting. Particularly, if you’re not limited like Veeck, and have more than one thing you could sell.
Such is my situation.
I am doing a live presentation next week about monetizing an email list, built around the case study of a list owner I’ve recently helped to roughly 3x his average monthly earnings from his list.
During that presentation, I will be giving away some valuable ideas, and a bit of my time.
That’s what I’m willing to give away for free.
On the other hand, I am only willing to sell my customized advice, my own direct help and availability, and my attention to you and your problems and unique challenges.
I am looking to get qualified leads for those things I do sell, and so I don’t mind making my presentation free, and even giving away some valuable ideas. If you want to get them: