The “Free Line” is Dysfunctional

I came to an important realization tonight.

As far as I can see, there’s no integrity in the whole idea of the “free line.”

That’s the idea that’s been growing like a weed all over the internet about giving your best stuff away free in order to grow your business.

I’ve been “moving my free line” ever since I heard someone talk about it.

I feel like I’ve moved my free line so far that it’s gone the whole way around the world and smacked me in the back of my head.

Instead of my common sense filter catching it and properly identifying it as one possible strategy to grow a business, I just swallowed it whole.

Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid.

So how’s the “free line” thing working for you?

Ever feel like you’re giving away the farm without much to show for it?

Well that’s because you ARE!

What you do has value.

Commit to that.

Commit to being confident communicating that.

Don’t follow the pied piper.

He’s not in the game to help you win.

I think this whole “free” train is a terrible way to treat my customers.

Just piling on “free” stuff so much that they don’t know what’s important and what isn’t.

What happens when thousands of people move their “free line?”

What happens is that their prospects get dumped on with more “great stuff” than anyone could ever use.

What good is 8400 free videos that no one watches?

In the end, it turns into white noise.

And white noise is useless. No value whatsoever.

Granted, there are some people out there for whom this strategy works.

I’m not one of them. And I bet most of you reading this might not be one of them either.

I’ve always wondered how you can move your “free line” so much that it ends up making the receiving party completely numb.

You give away stuff, maybe get some good feedback, and then your content goes in some folder buried on their hard drive.

They don’t do anything with it.

Well they don’t do anything with it because “free” is worthless folks.

It’s not worth a darn thing, because it didn’t cost a darn thing.

Value is energy.

If energy is exchanged, there’s value there.

If energy is sent only ONE way, there’s nothing exchanged.

It’s just a black hole.

And that’s why so many people are working so hard online with so little to show for it.

It’s because we’re all frickin’ giving it all away.

Who’s the genius that came up with that one?

If I “give my best stuff away,” then what am I gonna sell?

The experts will say something like, “And then, your prospects will say, well if he’s giving this away, just think how great the stuff he sells is…”

Let me ask you a question:

Have you ever heard someone ask that?

I haven’t.

So I’m standing up and standing for value.

Exchanging value for value.

And that doesn’t include free.

What I do is valuable… what you do is valuable… and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise.

I don’t want to attract the masses, seduce them down my slippery free line slope and hope they buy my stuff.

Value is value.

Value is not given… value is exchanged.

Here’s what I do…

This is what I charge…

Make your decision or move on.

End of story.

NOTE: Gotta give credit where credit is due. This whole “realization” of something I’ve probably known in my gut for a while is due to a conversation with a special someone who’s responsible for helping me to realize how important it is to listen to myself and to STAND FOR SOMETHING REAL.

Well, here it is.

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1. What’s So Great About FREE Shipping?
2. Turning a FREE Business into an 8 Figure FEE Business
3. AdWords… It’s About the Bottom Line (Video)