This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host for Sidusill School, bringing you different stories, case studies, question and answers, updates from our listeners, all about finding a way to make money without quitting your job. Sometimes making money before quitting your job, sometimes continuing to work your day job while also bringing in money on the side. Whatever it looks like for you, this is all about busy people who want to invest in themselves, right? Because everybody's busy out there, but yet some people find a way to not just think about the short term, not just think about, you know, what am I busy with today?
But how am I going to do something today that's going to help me have a better future? Well, I guess, you know, in the future, which could be tomorrow, or it could be another day in the future. All right, today I've got a story for you. The digital marketer featured in this story learned a valuable lesson. And that lesson was that offering free information won't cost you a customer, or at least it doesn't necessarily have to cost you a customer.
In fact, it will probably help. So what does that mean? Well, I often say that value, this word that's always thrown around, value simply means helping people. How can you help people? How can you then turn them into paying customers?
It's a two-part process. So it's not only about helping people, you gotta help people and then convert them. So it's a two-part process that we'll consider in this story. Also, what kind of free information do you offer and how much? I'll have a few comments on that at the end of the episode.
The story's coming up after this shout-out to our sponsor. [Music]
Jacob Ratliff was just 21 years old when he first became disillusioned with his day job. He worked as a digital marketing specialist, creating campaigns for clients that would bring them leads and increase sales. He was good at it, producing significant revenue for his employer. But his $30,000 a year salary was paltry, compared to the value he was providing.
Despite his best efforts, he had no luck negotiating a raise. Every day was a struggle, and he soon came to the conclusion that his job was a dead end. In an attempt to boost his income and keep his sanity, Jacob decided to try freelancing on the side. He was confident in his abilities and knew he could do a good job if he found clients of his own. Unlike the types of marketing campaigns he performed at work, he kept the search for his first client very simple.
He simply put out the word with his personal connections, asking if anyone knew of a small business looking for marketing support. In no time at all, he arranged his first meeting with a potential client. Not bad for a $0 marketing spend. Jacob met with the client, but very intentionally, he didn't sell to them right away. Instead, he offered help.
He shared his experience and gave away his knowledge. In the end, he was able to convert that first lead into a paying customer by providing them value before he extracted any for himself. He also learned a valuable lesson. Offering free information won't cost you a customer. In fact, it will probably help.
This is a sentiment Jacob carried with him as his side hustle matured. After signing that first client, he indulged in a mild celebration, buying drinks for a few friends, but he didn't spend all the money. Instead, he put most of it into a dedicated bank account. And by the way, quick side note, we'll talk about bank accounts and saving money for taxes, et cetera, in next week's classroom episode. Lots of exciting stuff there.
With one customer landed, a lot of people might try to land another sale quickly, but not Jacob. He wanted to make sure he could actually do a good job for this one first. He came up with a marketing plan that involved different channels, like social media, paid traffic, and even direct mail. From there, the plan involved converting those leads into customers, and eventually converting those customers into advocates. People who would refer more business to him.
This method of completing excellent work and utilizing referrals quickly spiraled out, bringing in more and more business. In fact, it worked so well that over the next three months, Jacob was earning enough to eclipse the salary he was making at his job. So he did what many people dream of doing one day. He quit that job and went out on his own. Over the coming months, Jacob learned another valuable lesson.
Having one good month doesn't mean the next one will be great. Some months, he'd make thousands of dollars, and the next, it might drop to less than he was earning at the low-paying job. He knew that offering services was part of the problem. With a service, he'd only be paid for the work he was doing. He then devised a way to bundle his services into packages.
Instead of charging per hour, he offered a set list of marketing tasks divided into either a one-off or monthly package. This had the almost immediate effect of stabilizing his income, so he knew what would be coming in with more regularity. It also allowed him to better gauge what he could spend on growing the business. Most of the money went to testing the same marketing channels he would recommend to his clients. For him, he found the most positive effect with direct mail, perhaps a surprise considering the tech-savvy nature of what he does, and strategic partnerships.
For example, he recently partnered with a commercial real estate agent to host a webinar. The focus was around improving email marketing, and it was broadcast to over 4,000 real estate brokers. While the exposure alone was good, Jacob recognized that brokers often don't have time to fully execute a high-quality marketing campaign. So he organized the webinar to provide information and education about what was possible, and then invited the brokers to work with him to help make their campaigns come to life. He immediately got several appointments.
As the leads kept on coming, Jacob built an official website for his business and registered it under ashvillemarketer.com, something he hadn't even bothered with in the beginning. He's now bringing in around $10,000 a month. So he organized the webinar to provide information and education about what was possible, and then invited the brokers to work with him to help make their campaigns come to life. He immediately got several appointments. As the leads kept on coming, Jacob built an official website for his business and registered it under ashvillemarketer.com, something he hadn't even bothered with in the beginning.
He's now bringing in around $10,000 a month. [Music]
Okay, let's look at this question. What kind of free information do you offer and how much? If you accept this principle that offering free information isn't going to cost you a customer, it's actually going to build value, well, what kind of free information do you offer? Now, I think what you do is you basically offer all the information, keyword information, but you charge for implementation.
And that's exactly what Jacob did here with the webinar, for example, the webinar for the real estate brokers. Presumably he didn't hold back. He shared whatever people wanted to know. But then of course it's a lot of work to actually make this happen. It's one thing to learn about email marketing.
It's another thing to go and implement an extensive campaign. So in this kind of service business, you're not holding back necessarily, but obviously to do all the work, that's where they're going to need to pay to become a client, right? So you offer all the information you charge for implementation. And in this field in particular, digital marketing, if someone can really provide the results that they promise, whatever their fee is can be well worth it. Now that said, it's still a bit of a wild west out there and a lot of money is wasted, okay?
So you do want to be careful. You do want to be careful and just invest slowly. If you're working with somebody who promises these kinds of things, I sometimes wonder why if some digital marketers are so good at bringing in leads and sales, why don't they do it more for their own business? Aside from the business that helps people bring in leads and sales. So no doubt it can be helpful, but for your business, you want to make sure that you have your finger on the pulse of whatever's happening.
You don't want to just kind of turn everything over to somebody and then stop paying attention. It's really important for you to be mindful and know exactly what's going on. All right, so just a cautionary tip there. But again, great story. Congratulations to Jacob and listeners.
Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes. All right, sidehustleschool.com/1184, 1184. If you've got a comment or question for the show, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thanks so much.
I'll be back again tomorrow. Be sure you're subscribed. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
