Leo, this is great. Really shows the power of why blogging is such a great idea for freelancers. I did a series of free blog reviews for my blog consulting service and not only were they a big hit, but they helped me get business. Soon, I will be giving away an ebook on how to start a business blog. The thing about ebooks is you need an audience to give it to, and that’s why blogging and ebooks go hand in hand: you build up your audience with your blog so you have a group to help launch an ebook (even a free one) or other items.

nice job huh! honestly, you really have a good heart if you do give advice for free…keep it up! ^_^

Very interesting article.

Yes Leo I am on a much earlier stage down th same track. By blogging consistently and well I hope to be seen as an expert and so people will be more likely to want my services on a paid basis. It takes time to get there but I am sure it is the right way

Leo ~ your free business model gives many of us small bloggers a very nice plan and framework to aspire to and work within. It is nice to see that quality (over quantity) can really work if you are persistent and hard working

All the best for your continued success.

Mark

The other “give it away” tactic is to donate your time to a charity you believe in. It helps by increasing your network (other possible future clients are also donating their time to the same cause) and by adding to your portfolio of successful projects.

So true, FreelanceMan. I’m working on closing the deal on a pretty nice gig with an independent publisher who knew me from some local volunteer work I did. It’s good to volunteer even without the networking benefits, but it’s a nice bonus.

Great article, Leo. Don’t worry; you didn’t sound boastful at all. You sounded successful, and that’s what we all want. My mind is already churning through all the possible topics I could share with others.

Leo, this is great advice and I can’t believe how much your blog has grown over the last few months.
Great job!

A good summary. I also tend to blog general advice. Another great client retention tool can be free advice via email. I try to keep my long-standing clients in mind when I surf for industry new etc. If I see an article related to software or services that I know they use, I email it to my client contacts. Or if there’s a book or application I think they’d appreciate, I share that, etc.

The (non-billable) sharing of expertise can often contribute to keeping a client relationship in good health. Just be sure to find the appropriate volume of communication, so they do not feed inundated. Your clients then realize that you not only have expertise that you are willing to share, but that you keep them in mind and are ‘narrow-casting’ just for them.

Well said! The most successful example of free must be Google. They give away all their products.

I’m researching why FREE will also work for the music industry. “Donate to musicians. Encourage free music.”

I’ll be writing more about this on my site: http://www.musicneutral.com

Giving away my ebook for free was the smartest thing I ever did! It allowed me to get more readers in one week than I did in the entire first two months online!

Great article (and comments). I appreciate the parts about self-development and experience from working. No one paid you, and yet you earned something.
The ‘be insanely useful’ advice struck a chord with me. I am a whole lot happier going the extra marathon than nickle and diming customers into a short term gain. Clients I have worked with have seen how far I go to get their questions answered–and if it comes to a project contract, negotiating terms is a breeze and the working relationship is smooth.
My undistributed free for all writing and code is missing out stuck in my hard drive. Kind of like so many people who will start blogging next month.
Thanks, good luck.

Well said. Funny how I came across this today, as just last night I was debating whether to make my ebook a paid version or a free version. Still don’t have a definitive answer yet, but you have some very good points which would support either side.

Mike

thanks for the extremely useful post! i think you’re right on and appreciate the wisdom….

This is an excellent post!!!

My self and the group of people who have created an online magazine on beauty, anti-aging and aging well have also worked along the same principles as Leo explains.

We’ve been asked by many other publications to be the expert beauty team and this simple blog we created 6 months about has taken us on a great ride.

We’re basically following another blogger who went from bloggin part-time while working at Salvation Army helping underprivileged people to having a very popular celebrity blog + having a segment on TV + covering a lot of the award events and the film festivals … all in the span of about 2-3 years!

The blog platform allows you to actually showcase what you do well and we do take the time to write compelling information that are completely and totally passionate about, people sense that and they come back for more and they also want you to share that kind of insane passion with their readers.

Getting paid is important because we all need the money to pay bills and also to grow financially, but there should always be something that we’re willing to give out for free to show people how level of expertise.

A blog is the perfect tool to help us do exactly that!

Talissa
http://www.beautymatch.comc

This guy knows what he’s talking about. I’ve already learned so much from his website.

The flip side is that people will often exploit peoples desire for free stuff…..I wrote about it recently on my blog over at:
http://www.seocracy.com/posts/show/48-Exploiting-the-power-of-FREE

I think there’s a lot to be learned from your position. However, I don’t think it’s universally applicable.
Blog’s are an ad revenue driven business. It’s also a brand new industry. Established businesses and individuals would need to at least reformulate their model for it to work as well as you’ve outlined. I think your writing, blog, ideas, etc are wonderful and appreciated etc. You’ve created a unique business for yourself, and I think is more of the profound lesson for people to take away vs. give you stuff away for free. In the design world, spec work without a big ‘prize’ can ruin you.
Cheers!

I would agree that advice, properly measured, just useful enough but not trade secrets is good. It is like a taster, a free sample at the supermarket that will get your appetite going. In reality in the case of the post it is not free advice that you are giving away but a form of personal advertising that has a bit of stickiness to it. The question is, is it free when you are hoping for something in return?

Our free advice blew up after only 3 weeks to the point we had to take down the Show!

We’re currently looking for sponsors to get NetNurse.TV established as a permanent home for online education.

My wife Danielle & I are so broke right now because of giving away FREE resources, we are basically begging for the first donation to help eat.

Were seven months pregnant & yet we refuse to give up.

Here’s what we were giving away for FREE that became so popular we had to shut it down.

http://getwebdesigner.com/BLOG/?page_id=69

If you think it’s valuable, please donate even $5 so we can know it’s worth it like FreelanceSwitch says.

We’re currently being interviewed by FS and we simply need to know giving back to the community is always worth it.

Our FlashDen Profile is here where we’ve been fortunate enough to sell hundreds of Flash Files we’ve designed over the past 3 years:
http://www.flashden.net/user/Flash_Cart?ref=Flash_Cart

If you feel this info is helpful/beneficial or are simply like us & can’t afford Traditional Education, donate so we’ll know we’re not alone.

P.S. Nice article Leo!

This is an excellent, excellent article. Extremely well laid out and inspiring. It’s a reminder that it takes time to get your name and reputation out there by giving away information and keep readers coming back.

One thing that I enjoy about blogging is that when I write, I feel joyful, especially if the words just flow easily and effortlessly. And then the comments fly forth, engaging me in a great conversation with the community. It’s great fun and fulfilling. Blogging is a great way to bring in speaking engagements, book deals and so forth but like you said, it doesn’t come overnight.

Awesome article.

Not to be a jerk, but I think it a bit presumptuous of you to call yourself an expert at writing. An expert at blogging? Sure. But the ability to write blog posts does not make one an expert writer.
Again, I don’t want to be a jerk, but throughout the productivity blogger community, the bloggers seem to think they’re good writers. Sure, they get the job done, but you do not become a great writer or an expert at writing by blogging for a year or two or three. It takes years and years and years of practice writing for a variety of mediums.
Again, please don’t get me wrong, I love Zen Habits and your articles elsewhere. I’ve just never thought of you (or your ilk) as experts on writing. I’ve never read a particularly snappy post on any of the productivity blogs. The writing always suffices but is not endearing. The topics are endearing indeed, but not the writing.

“Well giving away free work isn’t always bad, it can actually be used to build your trust and PR.”

I did that when looking at jobs on RentACoder once - the client was asking for some CSS troubleshooting, it took me 5 minutes to figure out and so I let them have it for free. They’re now one of my regular clients.

The other benefit of giving away free advice in the form of posts on your blog is that if your advice is sound, and as Leo suggests, you come to be recognised as an expert, you’ll naturally draw more links to your site which will, of course, help to boost its position in the search engines.

Well put. It’s like the saying goes, you have to give a little to get a lot. I think it’s vital on the web, when people can just google your name and find a lot of your portfolio, to be known in the industry. Giving advice for free, thereby gaining a reputaiton as an expert is a great way to accomplish this.

A method of “giving away advice” that seems to be working for me is web forums. I spend quite a bit of time helping people with web design tips and advice on a forum that I also advertise on. Part of the advertising contract there is that I’m allowed a signature link to my product (they are generally very hard on advertising products from people not paying for the privilege). So I help people with web problems and my hope is that they see me as having good customer support which should translate over to my product.

I do agree with your view. even i work on this method people ask me about few things about website development and promotion i know that they wont give me any sort of work right now but for awareness i make him clear about all that aspect of website and its benefit. and really i got few people come bank and say you given me good advice to grow my business.
so guy i would agree with his points.

Thanks
Amit Sharma