To Give, or Not to Give

[Curtis2011]

Okay so.. I'm putting this in the Business/Financial forums because I think it concerns personal wealth more than anything. Sort of.

A lot of today's internet marketers, and good marketers in the past as well, have realized that "to get, you must give" - basically, that they have to give away free "value" to others before they try to sell something.

And there are definitely some people who do give away a lot of value...

But lately I feel like I've grown a bit too accustomed to this idea, and find myself thinking "okay, I'll receive your free value and then I'll let you pitch your product to me" - in reality, I guess I'm getting a little bit annoyed any time someone tries to "give" me something because I know that deep down they are just using a technique to try to get me to buy from them later on.

Basically... My question is a spiritual one, but also a practical business one: Is it possible to make lots of money solely by giving to others, and not expecting or ever asking for anything in return?

Is it even possible to survive if all you do is give to others?

I know it feels great to get paid for the things you provide to others... In fact, getting paid is very cool

But deep down, I ask myself if that is really what I want to do: "manufacture reciprocity" as Jay Abraham calls it.

I would rather just give to others for the sake of helping them. And I wonder if that could be a viable business strategy? To give, without asking for anything in return?

[IamAlsoThat]

Well if you had an extremely valuable and insightful website which only had advertisements on the side. You probably wouldn't get rich. But if people clickced on them you might get enough. Also, if you accept only donations in paypal you could get moderately rich. I mean wikipedia is entirely run by taxes and they have a budget of hundereds of millions to be filled by donations. (maybe thats a bit of an exagerration but definitely many millions a year) Imagine a single person able to run such a website...

(Even Buddhist monks lived and do live their lives from the food donations made to them. It is said of the best monks that they only eat from their donation bowl never borrowing food from others)

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

I would rather just give to others for the sake of helping them. And I wonder if that could be a viable business strategy? To give, without asking for anything in return?

I think what your after is a non-profit organization. I don't think that will be a viable business strategy.
In fact, look at the people on this forum. Helping others, without expecting or asking for anything in return. No one's experiencing any monetary gains. Not to mention your competing with millions of people on the internet, all offering their own free advice.
I'm sure you know this, Curtis... but money talks and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ walks. For example, sometimes a slow moving product will get marked up and then it will sell out in no time. People assign value to money. If it's got a high price tag, it must be good!
Think about this too. Say you write an ebook and make it a free download. Ya, it gets some downloads but nothing to call home about (I tend to ignore free ebooks). I think the notion people have is that if it's free, obviously it's not good enough to sell. Therefore, it's not worth their time. Then you put a $20 price tag on it. Not only are you making money but your also attracting proactive people (I'm proactive and always pay for my ebooks). Proactive people tell other proactive people. They might actually use your information.
Anyway, my two cents.

[IamAlsoThat]

yea I pretty much agree that this will probably the most common case...

but my answer is theoretically possible...

[James81]

Originally Posted by Mounds

In fact, look at the people on this forum. Helping others, without expecting or asking for anything in return. No one's experiencing any monetary gains.

The gains that I have achieved through helping others has been far more valuable than any monetary gain I could have asked for.

I've come to realize that helping others IS helping myself. Every post I write here or on my blog, while aimed to helping others and lending insight into others' lives, is ultimately written for myself. And the growth I have experienced just by lending an ear to the countless people who have come to me through the years has had a profound effect on who I am and what I am capable of.

My point is that nothing is ever given without receiving something in return. Our issue lies in the fact that we've come to expect money or expect that we receive exactly what we have given. If we release control of that notion and pay attention, I think we'll discover that for everything we give, we get something back in return that is tenfold greater than that which we have given.

If we only realized this truth, we would all strive to give of ourselves in any way we are capable of.

[SatvikBeri]

A few things to consider:

1. You should focus more on providing the most value than on not receiving rewards for your efforts. Paying for a product makes people value it much more. This is a pretty observable fact-if people think a course is worth $50, as opposed to a course they think is free, they're likely to pay much more attention to the course (yes, there are caveats, but this is true 95% of the time). How much effort do you think people put into learning from Eben Pagan's courses? Quite a bit, I'd imagine. So by charging you are often giving people more value than you would otherwise.

2. If you set up a business, such as selling e-books, you can set a goal that after you make $X amount in sales you will give away the ebook for free. This is both an effective marketing technique AND sets you up to give away more value-plus, since the book has actually sold, people value the book more. This is what Joel Comm did with his AdSense Secrets book, for example.

3. Once you have a business model, you can then focus on giving and your business will grow naturally. This is largely what Steve does-for example, look at his post on the CGW bonuses. He clearly cares more about providing value with the bonuses than about increasing sales (or he's a damn good actor!). So you can certainly get to the point where you can just focus on giving, and know that the Universe will take care of you in return-but I'm not sure if you can start there.

4. Any monetizing model, such as advertising, requires people to spend money in the long run. Wouldn't you rather have them get the best products for that money? And if you're sincere, won't that often be what you produce?

[Marc Robertson]

Marketers will give under the notion that they will gain a return on investment. If they have no or inadequate return on investment, it isn't worth their time and investment.

If all you do is give, you really can't expect to get anything in return. If you give value to others, the only way that you can get a return on your investment is to put in place some way of recouping your time and money. A donation request is a perfectly valid example of doing so. For a given number of moochers, you'll likely get someone who decides to pay for the value that they have received. Advertisements are another way. Recommended products are simply a higher form of advertisement. In either case, this is exposure to internal or third party products. Other forms of gaining return is from getting on your feet and networking. The act of giving will certainly have a positive impact in getting leads.

If you give with nothing in return, you will probably be expected to dry up on resources. On the other hand, you might manage to open up some kind of a monetary riff. You could make more money then you know what to do with. In this case, you might be inclined to give something away for no expected return. I suppose if you come into millions of dollars from the lottery then you could put it in an investment that gains you a return. With the interest, you could parade around giving away free ice cream for example.

[Mounds]

The gains that I have achieved through helping others has been far more valuable than any monetary gain I could have asked for.

I've come to realize that helping others IS helping myself. Every post I write here or on my blog, while aimed to helping others and lending insight into others' lives, is ultimately written for myself. And the growth I have experienced just by lending an ear to the countless people who have come to me through the years has had a profound effect on who I am and what I am capable of.

My point is that nothing is ever given without receiving something in return. Our issue lies in the fact that we've come to expect money or expect that we receive exactly what we have given. If we release control of that notion and pay attention, I think we'll discover that for everything we give, we get something back in return that is tenfold greater than that which we have given.

If we only realized this truth, we would all strive to give of ourselves in any way we are capable of.

I agree, helping others is helping yourself. I do a bit of volunteer work myself.
The way the OP sounded is that the plan was to have a business that doesn't sell anything. That's not a viable business plan. Generally speaking, your in business to make money.
But like James says, you'll get a whole lot of experience by helping people. Try some volunteer work!

[Apollia]

You might enjoy this blog post from the Druid Journal blog: Selling Salvation V: An Economy of Spirit

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Basically... My question is a spiritual one, but also a practical business one: Is it possible to make lots of money solely by giving to others, and not expecting or ever asking for anything in return?

Currently, I doubt it's likely for most people to be able to get lots of money by giving stuff/services away without ever asking for anything in return. I think you would probably have to at least ask - otherwise, people might just assume you're so wealthy you don't even need anything from them, and that it will do you no harm if they just take what you're offering without giving you anything in return.

The above blog post pointed out an interesting example of a brick-and-mortar business with a very philanthropic business model - a pay-what-you-can restaurant.

It's the best concrete example of a sustainable philanthropic business (which actually gives its main products away for no money if someone can't afford them) I know of at the moment. (Though, I haven't extensively researched stuff like this yet; maybe there are other, better examples elsewhere).

However, it's not an example of exactly what you're asking about, because the restaurant definitely does expect and ask for some things in return - they ask upfront for people to pay what they can or do some work for them. SAME Cafe: The restaurant where you pay what you can - Page 1 - Dining - Denver - Westword

Originally Posted by Page 1 of the above article

Okay," says Brad. "So we're a non-profit restaurant. We operate on a pay-what-you-want model. So we have no set prices. We let our customers pick what they want to eat and then pay afterward, however much they wish. If you can't pay anything, then we ask you to volunteer an hour helping in the cafe."

Sometimes they insist that people help in the kitchen, and on occasion they kick some people out:

Originally Posted by Page 6 of above article

Brad says he's struggled with how to deal with those customers who take advantage of other people's benevolence. "I've had to approach a few folks to tell them, 'Hey, you need to start contributing, even if it's doing dishes,'" he says. "It's a tough balance. We wanted it to be like there's no pressure, there's no one watching — to a point."

The few times that point has been crossed, it was by a person uncontrollably drunk or rude to staff. "And we walk them to the door and still try to be nice, but say, 'You're not welcome here,'" Brad says. "Every once in a while you have to say something to somebody because they're blatantly abusing the privilege of being in here and, just like, 'We reserve the right to refuse service to anybody.'"

It's sad that anyone gets kicked out (even selfish, rude people), but it seems fair to me, because if the restaurant didn't do that, perhaps some kind of tragedy of the commons scenario would occur. The restaurant isn't a bottomless well of infinite quantities of free food; it's more like a limited resource that has to be protected so the restaurant can continue to exist.


I think whether you can make lots of money in return for giving might depend largely on the character of the people you're giving to, and the wealth of the people you're giving to.

If you give to ungrateful nasty people who remorselessly take advantage of others, you likely won't get anything back from them, no matter how rich they are.

If you give to appreciative, nice people who feel an urge to reciprocate when someone helps them, but they don't have enough money to fully reciprocate the value of your item or service, you probably won't get that much money directly in return (though they would likely help you in other ways).


However, perhaps there is a way to make a lot of money from giving away items/services to a large number of nice (but poor) people - encourage them to give you a tiny donation, a microdonation, like $1.

Help 10,000 people, and conceivably you could get $10,000, if you can persuade 100% of them to donate $1. Even if only 10% of the 10,000 people you helped give you $1, you would get $1,000, which isn't bad, assuming helping all those people didn't cost you more than $1,000.


Most people probably think $1 is too small to do any good or even be worth giving, so they probably won't even think to give you such a small amount unless you ask. They might feel ashamed to spontaneously offer you only $1, afraid it would seem like an insult to you, like whatever you gave them was only worth $1 to them, and afraid that it would make them seem cheap, poor, ungrateful, etc. - unless you let them know that donations of literally any size are welcome and will be useful to you, no matter how small.

If the microdonations idea ever gets popular enough, maybe someday you will be able to avoid even asking people for microdonations, because people in general will already be well-aware that even just $1 (or less) can really help and add up to something huge, if enough other people also contribute $1 (or similarly small amounts).

If the habit of giving microdonations in return for free items and services ever becomes as ubiquitous as giving tips to waiters/delivery people/etc. (who get tips despite the fact that they don't ask for them, and despite the fact that tips aren't mandatory) - perhaps someday in the future it will become feasible to make a lot of money by giving stuff away without even asking for anything in return.

Apollia

[Weena]

I'll just answer to the spiritual part of the question: when you give not expecting something for it, the universe send you back something. I always notice that fact, and i always notice people behaving badly to others get unpleasant situations sent to them.

I'm not saying you should deplete yourself with the giving part (something i'm only starting to try to balance, to scan for 'takers' who are just there to drain you)...but definitely by giving you show the universe you trust we are all worthy in the energy flow. I don't know if the way i try to explain it makes any sense...

Also sometimes i'm just in a great mood and if someone got a 'big' order from me (above a certain amount of Aussie dollars) i put freebies in the order, so yeah i definitely have no trouble giving free things + great advertisement for me as the happy customer will say to her friends 'oh and look i got this free as well'. Works both ways.

[Kristine]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Basically... My question is a spiritual one, but also a practical business one: Is it possible to make lots of money solely by giving to others, and not expecting or ever asking for anything in return?

I would look at the wording of your question. If you do not expect or ask for anything in return, how can you earn lots of money?

If you are helping someone solve a problem, and they value your solution more than the money they are willing to pay you, how is that wrong? I think you can earn loads of money by helping others. But if you don't open yourself up to receive value in return for the value you provide to others, then you won't get paid. And yes, getting paid is very cool.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Kristine

I would look at the wording of your question. If you do not expect or ask for anything in return, how can you earn lots of money?

If you are helping someone solve a problem, and they value your solution more than the money they are willing to pay you, how is that wrong? I think you can earn loads of money by helping others. But if you don't open yourself up to receive value in return for the value you provide to others, then you won't get paid. And yes, getting paid is very cool.

Hmm.... you speak much wisdom

I think perhaps me wanting to "only give" might be a symptom of some inner fear of success, or perhaps inner self-judgments about making money.

You are correct.. Just the wording of my question is a bit paradoxical I suppose. Perhaps I should be asking "how can I remove my limiting beliefs about getting paid for my work?"

[aiyori]

In an electronic world, giving stuffs away will NOT increase your cost. On the surface, it is stupid. But actually the giver is building up his authority and reputation, which will cost him lots of money if he does it the Adwords way. Remember, authority and reputation is the reason why famous bloggers can sell their reviews for thousands of dollars while ordinary webmasters need to stick with Add-cents.

And I think if you can write an Ebook which 1 million people are willing to download and actually read, you chance of making some money from your readers is not low at all. You can implement a hell lot more business ideas when you can gather 1 million readers.

Even the Big G is still giving away their main service, which is the most powerful search engine in human's history. And I am sure they will keep this main service free forever. If Google had charged users for searches, even 0.01 cent per search, it would never have grown to what it is now, no, not even 10% of what it is now.

[aiyori]

Originally Posted by Kristine

I would look at the wording of your question. If you do not expect or ask for anything in return, how can you earn lots of money?

If you are helping someone solve a problem, and they value your solution more than the money they are willing to pay you, how is that wrong? I think you can earn loads of money by helping others. But if you don't open yourself up to receive value in return for the value you provide to others, then you won't get paid. And yes, getting paid is very cool.

My wife, colleagues and friends play Facebook games at least 3~4 hours a day. I ask them how much they would pay for those nice games. Maybe a coincidence, their answer is a straight "zero", not even a cent!

I need to emphasize that in the online world, it is extremely difficult to charge users directly because they are so accustomed to the "free mode". If the most powerful search engine, 7G of email space, unlimited hours of video are all free of charge, why should they pay you? I think charging users directly is a very dangerous approach, especially when you have direct competitors of similar size.

[Apollia]

Something I forgot to mention before - the Zen Habits blog is successful (I think; I don't really know the details and am not sure where to look to find out), but, shockingly, all the material on it is uncopyrighted.

Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content | Zen Habits

Apollia

[CoolBee]

Well kinda related, for the past few months I've been making a point of donating occasionally to those sites where I have had valuable info or got a valuable download or something.

I usually have a standard amount of $10. There was only one site I got something from that I wanted to donate where the guy refused donations even if you email him and say 'how can I donate'. One or two sites invite you to donate to a charity that is meaningful to the site-owner instead which I have done.

I also recently read a post by someone somewhere - not on here I don't think - by a guy who has made it his new 'habit' to make sure every month he donates $20 to the various geeks out there who give free help to many people on forums and the like. I'm thinking of following suit in a more organized fashion when I next have a 'goal revaluation' exercise in the summer.

[Apollia]

Originally Posted by aiyori

Even the Big G is still giving away their main service, which is the most powerful search engine in human's history. And I am sure they will keep this main service free forever.

That's a great example of a successful business which gives away its main services, which I totally overlooked. (My excuse for overlooking this before is, I was trying to think of examples of altruistic businesses which give away physical products rather than intangible products).

However, unless I'm mistaken, Google keeps most of its software closed-source - so, for that reason, I don't consider them as purely altruistic as anyone who gives away the entire source code of their software without any restrictive licenses.

As far as I know, Google generally doesn't give away enough to make it possible for anyone to start any service which is an exact duplicate of anything Google does.

Which makes sense, because giving away all their source code, algorithms, etc. would probably be self-destructive, even though it would be very generous, and it might be good in some ways for others, because perhaps others would actually be able to substantially improve on Google's creations and services.

I have no idea how successful Google would be if they gave away the core of their business (such as by making all their source code, etc. public domain), and thereby helped out their own competition. I like open-source stuff, but am not so idealistic as to expect that to go perfectly well.

If Google had charged users for searches, even 0.01 cent per search, it would never have grown to what it is now, no, not even 10% of what it is now.

Ah, yes, I didn't even think of that point - the fact that nowadays, in some fields (like search engines), it might be impossible to even begin to thrive _unless_ you give things away.

I wonder how much money Google could make if they started asking for voluntary donations.

Originally Posted by aiyori

I need to emphasize that in the online world, it is extremely difficult to charge users directly because they are so accustomed to the "free mode".

Yes, mostly. Second Life is one exception I can think of, but there are lots of freebies there too.

Apollia

[Apollia]

Originally Posted by Kristine

If you are helping someone solve a problem, and they value your solution more than the money they are willing to pay you, how is that wrong?

My limiting beliefs, or scarcity mindset, or something, enable me to actually answer this question.

I believe that any money you accept from someone else deprives them of whatever else they could have bought with that money. The less money you accept from anyone, the better off those people will probably be. (Unless they're so rich that whatever amount you accept from them is a totally insignificant amount they'll never miss).

If someone doesn't have to pay $20 dollars in order to obtain a piece of software I wrote, that person will have $20 more dollars for food for themselves or their family, or whatever else they need or want.

Sure, perhaps many nice, honest people would actually be happy paying $20 for my software, despite the fact that doing so will leave them less money for food, a place to live, and so forth.

But, someone being willing or even happy to hurt themselves by paying me for something that costs me nothing to give away for free doesn't make accepting their needless sacrifice any more palatable to me.


So, I guess my problem with receiving money stems from looking at the act of accepting money from people as equivalent to hurting them, even if they don't perceive it that way, even if they're actually happy with whatever item or service I'm providing in exchange for their money, and even if it's actually fair for me to be compensated because of how much time, effort, and raw materials went into making whatever I might be selling (or giving away).

I guess that also at least partially explains why even getting donations (instead of payments) for items and services makes me feel a bit guilty, and why I'd feel better about getting a large multitude of tiny donations rather than one big donation (unless whoever gives me a big donation is definitely rich enough to comfortably afford it).


I guess if everyone were assured of food, shelter, and other survival basics regardless of whether or not they have money, I wouldn't feel this way.

If money were something that was only used for obtaining luxuries instead of necessities, then, when I accepted people's money, I'd only feel guilty about decreasing the amount of fun stuff people are able to buy, which wouldn't be as bad as the guilt of decreasing the amount of the necessities of life people are able to buy.


My perspective is probably flawed somehow, but I haven't been able to cleverly rationalize myself out of it yet.

So, I guess I'll just post this and see if anyone else has anything to say about it.

Apollia

[Froztwolf]

Originally Posted by Apollia

Sure, perhaps many nice, honest people would actually be happy paying $20 for my software, despite the fact that doing so will leave them less money for food, a place to live, and so forth.

You are assuming that people would still purchase your software even if that would leave them lacking money for food or a place to live. Highly unlikely. If you have faith in your customers' intelligence, give them the benefit of assuming they only purchase it if they can truly afford it.

Also you are assuming that buying your software costs them money. What if it makes them money? And what if they decide not to get your software because it's free and thus probably not as good as the software the next guy is selling for $20? Then you just failed to give value because you made your software free.

Fundamentally, you are assuming too much about your customer. This is where I see your error in logic. Price your software reasonably, market it honestly and trust that your customers are smart enough to make their own decisions based on what value they get for the money. Free is often a turn-off.

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

"okay, I'll receive your free value and then I'll let you pitch your product to me"

I don't pitch products. See this. I give advice and demonstrate the value of a product/service/offer. I do everything I can to show you the value of that offer and how it will help you move toward whatever desired outcome you have. But I never ask you to buy it. I simply tell you where the thing of value is and how you can get it.

You can download my value for free and I won't pitch you a thing.



-Jesse

[aiyori]

Frotzwolf

Talking about software, I think the price tag is the real turn-off because not all people have credit cards and not all those who have are willing to pay online. And as far as software is concerned, the real money is made when you can make your format the industrial standard.

You can always give away a free, limited but workable version of the software, such as a zip file opener that can open but can't zip, a PDF reader that can read but can't edit. Their formats become industrial standard because they give away.

That said, we must take into account the potential of the market. For instance, I don't mind giving away an English learning software to Chinese people because I am talking about hundreds of millions of potential users. If the software becomes popular, in the worst situation at least I can sell T-shirts. But if my product is an accounting software, I will certain charge a high price because $0 implies zero responsibility and people would not use my software just because it's free.

[CoolBee]

Originally Posted by aiyori

Talking about software, I think the price tag is the real turn-off because not all people have credit cards and not all those who have are willing to pay online.

This is a huge issue in many parts of the world. Here in Egypt very few people have credit cards, it is very much a cash economy - even buying houses takes place in cash! - and of those that do, you have to request a special card that works on line and that is not necessarily easy to get.

Paypal do not operate in Egypt (which I believe - but may be wrong - is a US edict).

Even if people wanted to buy stuff online they are simply unable to. If you plan to market anything to people in this part of the world, this is an issue you have to address.

[Piercetheveil]

CHeck Chris Anderson:

The Long Tail - Wired Blogs and Amazon.com: Free: The Future of a Radical Price (9781401322908): Chris Anderson: Books

[Froztwolf]

Originally Posted by aiyori

Frotzwolf

Talking about software, I think the price tag is the real turn-off because not all people have credit cards and not all those who have are willing to pay online. And as far as software is concerned, the real money is made when you can make your format the industrial standard.

You can always give away a free, limited but workable version of the software, such as a zip file opener that can open but can't zip, a PDF reader that can read but can't edit. Their formats become industrial standard because they give away.

That said, we must take into account the potential of the market. For instance, I don't mind giving away an English learning software to Chinese people because I am talking about hundreds of millions of potential users. If the software becomes popular, in the worst situation at least I can sell T-shirts. But if my product is an accounting software, I will certain charge a high price because $0 implies zero responsibility and people would not use my software just because it's free.

As you say yourself it depends on the application.
Personally I wouldn't pay money for a zip-application because there are excellent free ones out there and because I'm used to being able to do it for free but I would pay money for a language learning program because it is my experience that the free ones are horribly bad.

[Brutha]

I mean wikipedia is entirely run by taxes and they have a budget of hundereds of millions to be filled by donations.

Wikipedia budget is in seven digits not nine digits.

Paypal do not operate in Egypt (which I believe - but may be wrong - is a US edict).

Egypt is supported by billions per year from the US. It wouldn't make much sense to have an edict against a country which the US considers to be friendly.
It's probably rather that Paypal doesn't trust the banks in Egypt.
Money laundering is a big problem.

That said, we must take into account the potential of the market. For instance, I don't mind giving away an English learning software to Chinese people because I am talking about hundreds of millions of potential users.

There are also cultural differences between the Chinese market and the US market.
Chinese pay for virtual goods that cost small amounts of money while that business model doesn't seem to work in the US or Europe.

I think that a freemium model would work well for language learning software.

I also recently read a post by someone somewhere - not on here I don't think - by a guy who has made it his new 'habit' to make sure every month he donates $20 to the various geeks out there who give free help to many people on forums and the like. I'm thinking of following suit in a more organized fashion when I next have a 'goal revaluation' exercise in the summer.

I don't think that's much helpful. Forcing a monetary incentives into a community makes things worse.
Helping other people is inherently motivating. External rewards can reduce the internal motivation.

Forcing a monetary currency into an interaction that wasn't about money can have bad effects.
If I have had sex with a date I don't increase your chances of having another time sex with the girl by offering to pay her.

In the case of online forums or a lot of open source it's much better to be a good citizen yourself.
If you read a Wikipedia article and notice some error take the time to correct it.

Different human interactions can work on different kind of transactions.

Of course everyone has to do something to feed himself but that doesn't mean that everything we do has to be money motivated.

[The Unconquered]

Originally Posted by aiyori

Basically... My question is a spiritual one, but also a practical business one: Is it possible to make lots of money solely by giving to others, and not expecting or ever asking for anything in return?

Is it even possible to survive if all you do is give to others?

Yes. . . there is so much proof of that out there that I don't know where to begin. Linux? OpenOffice.org? Firefox? Facebook? YouTube? Google? The Open Source movement?