I’ve been using a marketing technique for many years, where I give away the “what” and charge for the “how to”. Using marketing content I’ll teach people the “what” and I’ll sell services or training to give the “how to”.

Marketing content can be your blog posts, your YouTube videos or your free downloadable e-book.

Then charge for the how to;  the technical implementation, details on how to do the “thing”.

The “What” Shows You Are An Expert

When you can articulate how something works with the “what” free content you are showing yourself as a subject matter expert.

You can educate your audience that there is this “thing” and it may be useful to them in some way.

The How To Makes The Denaro

In the what phase you may show how to do the “thing”, but it might be too technical for many people, or people just don’t have the time to do it.

Or, the how may be a new concept, people don’t understand yet, their appetite is whetted by the what and they choose to learn more.

At this point, the person you marketed too for free can choose your premium option and pay for your services or premium products.

EXAMPLE: Diary Mapping

Here’s a real life example of this with my DiaryMapping.com course, which goes fully live today (what’s the chances of me writing this post on the day I go live, you can’t plan things like this).

Diary Mapping brings in new potential students with a free Understanding Diary Mapping course and if they want to go deeper there is a premium How To Diary Map course for $9.00.

The “What “For Free

I’ve created a free course that brings the new concept of a diary map to people.

I’m using this free “what” guide to introduce my concepts to people at no risk.  I’m explaining what Diary Mapping is, the terminology and how it can help people to tame their to-do list.

If a potential student is interested they can move onto the how to, if it’s of no interest, no problem they can move onto the next thing in their day and ignore the premium course.

The How To For A Fee

I have a second premium course on the same site which goes much more deeply into the how to Diary Map subject.

I explain how to build a diary map, how to control their to do list etc.

The people who pay for this have been through the free “what” phase and have realised this is useful to them.

It’s not too pushy and it gives a way to test what you have before anyone buys.

Wrap up – Give Away The What And Charge For The How To

Giving away the how and charging for the how to has worked for me in WordPress consulting jobs, Courses and other areas of my business.

Give it a go, and remember to check out my free Understanding Diary Mapping course to see this process in action