At the Marketing Planning workshop  I ran in March, we got onto talking about writing books, newsletters and articles. These are all ways of sharing your expertise and advice ? just as I do in this blog.

One of the delegates asked me if I ever worry about giving away too many secrets. She was worried that if she gave away too much, that people would take her information and never come back to buy from her. My answer was that there will always be people who take what advice they can. They will go away and put all your advice into practice, doing whatever they can. They will thank you for what you?ve shared with them, but will probably never actually pay you to help them or give them extra advice. And that?s fine. You can?t turn every person you speak to into a client ? and if you try to hook them all, you?ll just wear yourself out. The people who take your free advice will sing your praises and they will tell lots of other people about how great you are; some of those people may well become your paying clients.

I went on to say that there will also be people who take your free advice and try to put it into practice. They will get as far as they can and when they get stuck, or run out of time, the person they will come back to for more, paid for help, is the one who gave them the advice in the first place ? you! By giving help you give other people a way to get to know and trust you. When you provide a service, people often need to get to know you before they buy from you. They need to be sure that you know what you?re talking about; they need proof that you can help them. Giving away your advice is a way of giving them that proof.

So the moral of this story is ? don?t be afraid to give away your time, knowledge, expertise and advice. Pay it forward and someone will eventually pay it forward to you.