These days, if I want to hire a professional, I will check out their blog because I am more concerned about WHO they are rather than WHAT they do.

There are many people out there doing the same thing ( the WHAT), but what you want is for people to want to do business with YOU.

One way of making people want to do business with you, is by giving away free knowledge. This could be done via blog, podcast, newsletters, mailing lists, free talks and seminars etc. The list is endless. When you give out a lot of free “information” that you would usually reserve for paying clients –it accomplishes the following things:

1. Firstly, it displays your expertise.

People want to do business with experts. If you are an expert at what you do, but do little to show it, I’m probably not going to work with you – because I don’t know any better. By displaying your expertise, people start thinking “Oh wow, this person knows what they are talking about.”

2. It generates the thought “If they can share this kind of great information for free, imagine what they would do for paying customers! Daaaamn.”

When you give information, wisdom, knowledge and expertise for free, customers get a glimpse of just a fraction of what you can offer them for their investment. The trick to this however, is that you better make sure what you do offer them when they pay for your services, is really something special. But that’s up to you to decide, not me.

3. It builds trust and your reputation with potential clients.

Your clients will have the option to follow your work and legacy for a while before they engage in any work with you. If you are stable and steadily flood your niche market with content and value, you will start to build trust. Your clients will also get to know more about you – which builds reputation and rapport. Both very good things in business.

 The pitfalls, oh my!

1.  Share your knowledge not your services.

If a client wants your wisdom, they can check out your blog. If they want your services, they have to do business with you. Your services are limited by your time, energy, resources and availability. Your knowledge should be infinite, abundant and limitless. So how do you acquire infinite, abundant and limitless knowledge? By being genuinely interested in what you do, to constantly be learning and bettering yourself.

2.  You must believe in your product.

For any of this to work for you, you have to believe in your business 10000%. You should believe it is worth it, and have confidence in your message. It’s easy to spot a phony.

3. You shouldn’t feel like you are going to run out of deliciousness and goodness.

If the thought “but if I give them all this wisdom and knowledge in my blog, then I won’t have anything left over when we work together!” creeps into that cute little head of yours, I don’t think you product and business is fully ready for the high-scale success you are aiming for. In this case, you need to learn more about what you are doing and really be a vessel of knowledge and understanding. Do some private and quiet work for yourself. Get interested and get interesting. Then you will be ready.

Good luck!