Free "Stuff" on the Internet

This won't be a real long article. Hopefully, most of your time will be spent reviewing your own sales letters after you read it.

At the risk of being drawn and quartered, I'm going to say - once again ... The erroneous idea that everything should be "free" on the Internet has done more to pull down levels of online professionalism than any other single idea. It has also done more to harm online commerce than any other single idea.

I could send you to a bazillion web sites to prove my point but I'll settle for one. YOURS. If you are an online business owner - you're selling something. You probably have a "sales letter." You've been taught that the only way to get people to buy your product/service is to give away the farm for that $20 sale. You've been taught that you'll never have a successful online business if you don't deliver the moon. You'll go broke!

And online customers have been spoiled rotten by this. They actually believe now, that if they spend $20 with you, they should receive $2,000 worth of free stuff! They expect it! They demand it! What is wrong with this picture?

Remember the last time you visited a department store? Did they have anyone standing around offering you a whole aisle of free stuff if you would buy just one $20 product? Did every product have a price tag that promised to GIVE you 14 other products if you would just PLEASE buy this one?

I'm not talking about the cosmetic companies who offer you a whole bag of goodies at half price if you'll buy one $40 product. That isn't free. That's a back-end sale and it isn't worth any more than the "half price" they offer.

I mean FREE! Come on - we all know that the only thing you'll get free at an off-line establishment is a smile when you walk through the door of Wal-Mart. They pay people to stand at the door and give away a "Hello," and a smile! FREE! And it works! But products? Not likely! Think they're going broke? So why should it be any different for an online business?

Okay - I know you're not going to take the free stuff out of your sales letters. But maybe we could use a little reason here. Maybe we could just be a bit more realistic.

Is that piece of software you're giving away REALLY worth $499? Who ever paid that much for it? Has anyone ever actually paid you $1,000 for that 60 minute consultation you're offering for free? And that free eBook. It's really worth WHAT? The time it took you to download it? When's the last time you read ANY book that contained "thousands of dollars worth of information" you couldn't get somewhere else for next to nothing?

Of course, at the grocery store, you MIGHT get a free loaf of bread if you buy their lunch meat. That's IF you buy six packages of lunch meat. But they don't try to tell you that the 99 CENT loaf of bread is worth 99 DOLLARS. For six packages of lunch meat, you probably deserve a loaf of bread. But do you deserve a whole new kitchen?

When I see a sales letter with inflated prices for the free stuff - I lose all respect for the merchant immediately. Who really believes that you are going to give away thousands - or even hundreds - of dollars worth of free stuff for that lousy $20 sale? Not me!

If you know who Andy Rooney is - try this. Read your sales letter and pretend he's the one reading it. What do you think you would hear on "60 Minutes" next week? I don't know about you - but that scares me!

I only WISH I had the whole answer. All I can say is that we've turned into a community of enormous greed. The consumer demands everything for nothing - and the merchant promises everything when it is, in fact, very little. So why are we surprised at the amount of theft - scams - libel - and illegal activity on the Internet?!

About the author:

Dr. JL scott is the Director of the International Council of Online Professionals (iCop) - and also the publisher of MONDAY MEMO! - the ezine dedicated to upgrading Professionalism on the Web. For your FREE subscription: Monday-Memo-on@MondayMemo.org






jlscott@i-Cop.org
http://www.i-cop.org/