{"id":3263,"date":"2013-11-05T09:03:46","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T09:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/?p=3263"},"modified":"2018-12-06T08:30:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T15:30:20","slug":"the-power-of-asking-how-letting-people-choose-their-price-can-make-you-a-millionaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/the-power-of-asking-how-letting-people-choose-their-price-can-make-you-a-millionaire\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay What You Want: How Letting People Choose Their Price Can Make You a Millionaire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"coffee<\/h2>\n

I started writing and publishing online in the fall of 2012.<\/p>\n

At the time, I wasn\u2019t sure what I was doing\u2026I just knew there were ideas in my head I wanted to share with other people.<\/p>\n

I started with no audience and no connections.<\/i><\/p>\n

For the first few months, I spent dozens of hours every week creating content and publishing multiple times a week, but received little to no attention.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t keep track, but I easily spent 100 hours a month on this website \u2013 a part-time job\u2019s worth of work on top of my regular 60hr+ per week regular job.<\/p>\n

For most people, that would be enough time wasted on a project to conclude it\u2019s not going anywhere.<\/strong>\u00a0 Throw in the towel and cut your losses, right?<\/p>\n

Against rational reasoning, I didn\u2019t stop.\u00a0 I believed in my writing and I couldn\u2019t quit because no one noticed (at least not until I hit 10,000 hours, right?).\u00a0 So I kept creating content and continued to do it all for free.<\/em><\/p>\n

In November of 2012, I wrote and published my first book: The Art of Instigating<\/i>.\u00a0 I gave it away for free, just like my blog posts.\u00a0 Once again, I felt there was an important message that people should hear, and I wanted as many people as possible to hear it (hence, the free price sticker).<\/p>\n

The small group of people who were following me liked it and spread the word.\u00a0 My list grew by a couple dozen (an embarrassingly small amount by some standards, but I was proud nonetheless).<\/p>\n

Shortly after releasing The Art of Instigating<\/i>, I created a couple guides to help people start, finish and ship their own creative projects.\u00a0 This is something I have a lot of experience doing through entrepreneurial endeavors but also throughout my time in the military, where the majority of my jobs related to project management, setting and hitting deadlines, and making things work (even when there were no resources to do so).<\/p>\n

I gave these away for free.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In January of 2013, I started a podcast, In The Trenches<\/i>, hoping to share the stories and journeys of other entrepreneurs and artists making an impact in the world.\u00a0 While the show costs money to produce, I didn\u2019t want to charge listeners \u2013 I felt the content was too valuable to keep it locked up behind price barriers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like the book and guides before it, I gave this podcast away for free.<\/p>\n

What to do as an Unknown Author\u2026<\/h3>\n

Around the spring of 2013, I was ready to publish my second book: 2 Days with Seth Godin<\/i>.<\/p>\n

This book, like The Art of Instigating<\/i>, had a ton of compelling content, and I wanted as many people as possible to have access to it.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t want to simply give the content away for free, and let that be that, like I had with my previous experiments.<\/p>\n

To be completely honest, I wanted validation.\u00a0 REAL validation.\u00a0 Of course, the only ways to get real validation is through an exchange of money.\u00a0 You find out pretty quick what people think of your product or service when you start charging.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But this presented a problem because charging for the book would defeat the purpose of the platform I was trying to create \u2013 I wanted people to have access to the same game-changing information that I did, regardless of their financial situation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I stumbled across the Gumroad platform and their Pay What You Want<\/i> pricing option.<\/p>\n

Putting PWYW to Work<\/h3>\n

I originally heard about Pay What You Want<\/i> pricing about a year ago while listing to an interview on Pat Flynn\u2019s Smart Passive Income Podcast.<\/p>\n

The person being interviewed was Anthony Vennare of The Hybrid Athlete<\/a>.\u00a0 Anthony and his brother started The Hybrid Athlete earlier that year.\u00a0 But in a short amount of time, they had created a website that brought in, on average, $200 - $400 per day, using a Pay What You Want<\/i> pricing method.<\/p>\n

I was blown away.<\/b><\/p>\n

Here was a real business, with real products and services, and real employees, making a killing using an unconventional pricing model.<\/p>\n

I loved it.<\/em><\/p>\n

This interview stuck with me.\u00a0 Ever since starting my blog I thought about how I\u2019d incorporate Pay What You Want\u00a0<\/i>into what I created.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t sure exactly how I should use it, I just knew I wanted to.<\/p>\n

So as I sat looking at the finished PDF of 2 Days<\/i> next to Gumroad\u2019s Pay What You Want<\/i> feature in an open browser, the year-old interview came back to me:\u00a0 THIS<\/i> is how I can apply what I learned from Pat Flynn\u2019s interview with Anthony Vennare to my art and work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After getting permission from Seth Godin to share the book I'd written,\u00a0I uploaded it into Gumroad, created a simple page on my website, and shared it with my readers (166 subscribers at the time).<\/p>\n

I set the price of the book at $0+ (contribute whatever you want to my creative work \u2013 or nothing at all).<\/p>\n

In the first day, I received close to $80 in contributions<\/b> \u2013 enough to pay for a nice dinner for two\u2026not bad\u2026<\/p>\n

By the first week, $340<\/b> \u2013 enough to cover groceries for the month\u2026awesome\u2026<\/p>\n

By the end of the first month, I was closing in on $500 \u2013<\/b> almost enough money to pay the rent\u2026incredible.<\/p>\n

All for a product I gave away for free, but with one big difference: this is the first time I LET people give back to me.<\/i><\/p>\n

Why These Numbers Matter<\/h2>\n

I give you my personal story for a couple reasons:<\/p>\n

1) You don\u2019t need to be a marketing genius or have a huge following to make money from your art.<\/h3>\n

I had no idea how to \u2018launch\u2019 a product.\u00a0 I had a subscriber base of 166 people \u2013 a lot of people would laugh and say you don\u2019t make money off of a list of 166 people.<\/p>\n

I released my product randomly on a Sunday evening with no big announcement, no strategy, and no connections to other bloggers, yet I made $340 in the first week.<\/p>\n

All from a product I gave away for FREE.<\/i><\/p>\n

2) Pay What You Want<\/i> WORKS<\/h3>\n

In my case, in a very small way \u2013 at least at first.<\/p>\n

But in many other cases, in very big ways.<\/p>\n

Anthony Vennare and The Hybrid Athlete is only the tip of the iceberg of what\u2019s possible with this pricing method.<\/p>\n

After writing about my experience \u00a0with Pay What You Want for Think Traffic<\/a>, I received dozens of questions regarding Pay What You Want<\/i>:<\/p>\n