You don't understand 'Pay What You Want'

I was doing a bit more research tonight into 'Pay What You Want' (I talked about it over here in It's time to step outside the wire) and I found your website where you created a course that you were offering with the 'pay what you want' model. I was interested, so I read some more.

You were pricing 3 different elements of the course - $97, $147 and $297. You promoted the 'pay what you want' method for a reasonable amount of your promotion page, but then you finished with words to the effect of:

"I will always reserve the right to turn down your offer to pay what you want if it doesn't match what I consider its value."

At that point I laughed. You lost me. You don't want people to 'pay what they want' at all! You want people to pay what YOU want. It looked like all you were doing is trying to cash in on the 'pay what you want' interest out there.



Allowing people to pay what THEY want allows more people to access your product or service than would normally be able to. If you're selling something worth $500, for example, you're only going to get reasonably wealthy people buying it. But if you allow people to pay what they want (what they can afford or even choose to pay), even if it's just $1, you actually end up with the potential to increase your income.

You encourage people to pay you for the value that you're creating or providing.

Not only that, you increase your exposure to more people by allowing more people to buy what you're offering, especially those that might not normally have been able to afford it.

This results in more clients or customers appreciating what you're doing. More people talking about you. More people promoting you. More money being made by you.

And if you offer something of value, then you encourage them to buy more from you, to pay you more next time, and to reward you for the value you're giving them.

But when you disguise a fixed price as 'pay what you want', you make me laugh. You obviously don't get it as you remain fixated on your fixed price. It makes me feel that you don't trust the model well enough to just let go and let people pay you what they think you're worth.

And that's likely part of your problem - what you're worth. You don't see your own worth.

Maybe you don't think you're worth very much at all, so you're afraid they'll confirm that. Be holding on to some form of 'fixed price' control, you feel like you're controlling the value others might see in you, because you don't see that value yourself.

And yes, in talking to you, I'm talking to myself. I'm seeing in you what I need to see, so that I can see the value in it for myself.

I thought last night about offering web hosting services to a business client when I was creating a proposal for them, but I ended up offering three package deals they could choose from. They ended up choosing the cheapest of the packages. It was still a win, but...

What would have happened if I offered my services without a price, and instead offered it to them via the 'pay what you want' model? They may have paid even less than what I originally wanted.

But they may have paid more.

If a potential client or buyer sees value in what you're offering, they might just pay you more than you thought they would.

But you have to be providing value for them to see it themselves and pay you accordingly.

I think so few people in this world today provide anything of value any more, that if something comes along that forces them to actually provide value, they fear it. They don't want to do the extra hard work to provide the real value in their work, when they can rely on fixed prices as an attempt to justify the value.

"Look, see? My work is priced at $500 - that's its value!"

I really like the idea of saying, "Pay me what you feel it's worth to you." Because that encourages me to work harder.

I've enjoyed working as an IT contractor this past 7 years, because it's paid me high amounts of money in exchange for high expectations from the clients for quality of work and exceptional performance. I've had to earn the high income. I've had to prove my value, every single day, or I'd get fired. My contract would be terminated. I had to avoid that from happening!

It was hard work, but I loved that approach. I loved the inspiration and incentive to do the best that I could.

And I can see that Pay What You Want is another element of that, to inspire and encourage me to do the best that I can, in order to encourage my clients or customers (or subscribers) to pay me MORE of what they want, because of the value I'm giving them.

We all end up happier as a result. Win-win. And that's why I intend doing things with Pay What You Want.

I'm going to be revising my proposal to the business client, who has already accepted the fixed price contract. But I'm going to offer it to them again with the new conditions, that they can pay me what they want. They know what I originally wanted (which they accepted), but I'll offer them the opportunity to get it cheaper.

In regards to hours spent working for them to provide them with services, paying me a cheaper rate may encourage them to give me more hours of work than they would at the previous rate. I could end up earning more as a result. (For example, $80 an hour x 10 hours is $800. But $60 an hour x 20 hours is $1200...)

It's all about the value of what you're providing. Fixed prices creates stagnation, while uncertainty creates inspiration, hard work and growth. I love that.

I've been busy

I should apologise, to you and to myself. I haven't been keeping up with my daily posts of 500 words. I've been focused on my web design website and the work I'm setting up for myself with that.

Over the weekend I spent a lot of time working on some documents that I'll be using for the business -  Proposal document, and a Contract. Both of them are going to be very important for generating business with a client, and then locking in a commitment from the client.

Not to mention the work I've already started doing for the client I already have.

And planning a move to Melbourne.

And fine-tuning my web design business website. And advertising it on Facebook (more about that shortly).

It's been very exciting, but most of my waking hours have been in front of the computer setting myself up as best I can with my business. It's not something I've found annoying or tedious in any way. It's been awesome.

Now, about Facebook....

I wanted to try an experiment, just to see what would happen. I purchased a promotion of my new Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/webdesign4you.biz) to get about 4-18 'Likes' per day. After 4 days so far, I've had it exposed to almost 6,000 people on Facebook in various countries and received 49 Likes so far from people who aren't my friends (12 of my friends have Liked the page). It's been about 11-12 Likes per day on average, which is ok.

But from that exposure and those Likes, no one has contacted me for web design services. I'm doing this particular promotion for 7 days at $6 a day. If only one person contacts me to get me to design a website for them, then the promotion will be worth it and I'll continue it. But if no one contacts me, then the promotion will be useless and I'll discontinue it after 7 days.

I decided to do another experiment. A couple of days ago I made a post on the Page about how anyone contacting me from Facebook for any web design services would receive 12 months of FREE web hosting!

That's a pretty good deal.

I had about 50 Likes at the time, but after 24 hours, Facebook had only shown that post to 7 of those people who had Liked the page. So I spent $5 to promote the post to all of them plus a few thousand people in various countries.

It's been 24 hours later, and almost 10,000 people have seen that post offering them something free. You'd think at least 1 person might be interested enough to contact me to discuss what I could do for them, right?

From that promotion I've had only 2 people Like the post, and 2 people clicked on my photo. From 10,000 views.

That's pretty amazing. From this exhaustive and conclusive experimentation, I've determined that advertising on Facebook is likely to be a waste of time and money. But I'm sure Facebook will reap wonderful rewards for it.

I think I'll be sourcing other avenues of promotion.

I'll continue using the Facebook page to promote my business there, because it's an avenue of exposure that I think may be good for me in the short term, even if it's just to get more people Liking it and seeing what I'm promoting. I'll probably do a weekly campaign once a month to generate increased exposure, but I won't be expecting clients from it.

Of course, if I do get a client from it, I'll eat my hat enjoy a wonderful cup of coffee as my reward for a positive and rewarding marketing campaign!

And I've managed to write 597 words tonight. Woohoo!

The quandaries of online work

I'm really just starting out as an online writer (or 'web content developer' as I'm enjoying calling myself now), but I'm already seeing some of the interesting challenges with promoting my services through a variety of different locations.

I received some work via fiverr.com today, which is the site that inspired me to provide 'direct to client' services instead of having them keep 20% of my income. But I haven't closed my account with them or anything, so when I got this extra work I was faced with a quandary.

Do I want to continue doing work through a site that I don't like, for my own reasons, or is 80% of something better than 100% of nothing?

After debating it with myself, I came to an agreement with myself that it certainly would be better to get 80% of something rather than 100% of nothing.

So it's great that I'm still getting work through fiverr.com. It's also great that I'm offering services direct to clients. Doing it directly to the client is better for me, but it's nice having the extra sources adding to the total.

It helped me come to an understanding with myself, to get past certain morals that can get in the way, and even expand upon those different sources, signing up with different sites to get writing work through as many as I can.

The more the merrier!

I need to get as much work as I can, from as many different locations as I can, to maximise my potential income from this venture I'm engaging in.

I also realised tonight that being out of work and finding it difficult to get a 'day job' at the moment is forcing me to chase my dreams.

When I wrote my predictions for my life in 2014, #1 was:

I'll be earning a minimum of $500 a week from paid online writing.

My plan is moving forward.

Fun and games with Paypal

I've been REALLY busy yesterday and today, working on developing my online services page - My Online Services. It's been a lot of fun! I've really enjoyed the process of sitting down and getting serious about what I'm doing, and putting it all onto my website.

But I ran into a small problem today with PayPal...

I used a 'Donation' button to allow the payment of variable amounts via PayPal, since there didn't seem to be an option available for variable amount selections with any of their other payment and button options.

This worked fine for a single transaction this morning, but then shortly after I received an email stating that my account was being limited in its functionality while a legal investigation proceeded with my use of the Donation button.

It seems that in Australia, PayPal need to comply with Australian laws that make it illegal for any person or business to receive donations unless they're a non-profit organisation. Good on ya, Australia....

PayPal advised me I'll need to prove I was a non-profit organisation before they'd return full functionality to my account. Until this happened, I would not be able to send money to anyone, nor would I be able to withdraw money from my account, but my account could still receive money.

So I immediately deleted the Donations button from my account. I did some research and found that I could use a Buy Now button which required an amount to be set - but I could put in $0.00 which would mean the buyer would have to set the amount themselves.

This is what I should have done in the first place, but there was no documentation anywhere that discussed that. And the only way I found out about it was on a site that was talking about 'a secret tip' that would allow me to do that.

Why the hell does PayPal want it secret? Blows my mind.

Anyway, after deleting the Donations button and setting up the Buy Now button to do what I wanted, I then phoned PayPal to discuss the problem.

They accepted it was an error, noted that I'd removed the button from my account, and advised me to simply confirm my identity via the Resolution process. Their Legal Department would review my account, the notes on it that I'd advised, and would get back to me within the next 3 business days.

I do hope this gets resolved. I'd hate to have to use an alternative to PayPal because I've already got all payment options and bank accounts linked up through PayPal; it'd be really annoying having to go through it all again with some other provider.

However, if any of you reading this think there's a much better solution with an alternate provider to PayPal, I'm open minded enough to look into it if you think it's worthwhile. Please leave your recommendations in the comments below. Thanks!

UPDATE 10 Jan 2014

It took them only 15 hours instead of 3 days, but I was advised their review is complete and they've returned my account back to normal. Yay!

Offering my services for only $5

I've started playing around with fiverr.com, a site that allows you to offer or buy services or products that are made available for only $5. But you can also buy or sell 'add-on' services for extra amounts.

This page describes the value of it:

Financial Freedom

A recent study we conducted shows that as many as 86% of the entrepreneurs we surveyed were seeking job independence. More and more people are making Fiverr their go-to place to kickstart their journey to financial independence. With Fiverr, they are able to turn their skills and passions into an income, on their own terms. 14% of sellers already report Fiverr as their primary source of income.

And from there you can probably understand why I'm offering services there. At the moment it's a bit of an experiment, to see what I can offer that people will be interested in purchasing. For only $5, it's a bargain! Anyone can afford that.

I can appreciate that for $5, I'll be creating templated service offerings, where I can receive $5 for something, and then quickly send them the information they require that's already been made up. If I'm getting a dozen of these a day, it's got to require next to no effort to provide the service being purchased.

So far I've got three services active (click on the links to see them in more detail):

1. I will manage the administration of your Wordpress blog for $5


2. I will help you with meaningful dating and relationship advice for $5


3. I will help you overcome your passive aggressive behaviour for $5

All three of them are services that I have knowledge, skill or expertise in. Numbers 2 and 3 are may only require a couple personalised paragraphs, along with some standard cut and paste of applicable strategies, and they're easily done in exchange for $5.

Number 1, however, will be a bit more involved, which is why I'm offering my Wordpress administration services at $5 per admin function. A client will be advised what is required with the administration of their site, and they can choose which of the ongoing services they want to purchase, and this will be the case for every time they want something done. If there's regular administration requirements, then each occurrence will be another $5 that they manually purchase.

Alternatively, they can purchase add-on services that will purchase my service for ongoing administrator on a monthly basis, rather than as a per-function service.

But as I said, this is all an experiment to see what works and what doesn't, and what can be modified or dropped altogether.

It's the beginning of an ongoing exploration into online money making ventures. More will come, including eBooks to sell on Amazon, which I'm in the process of starting now.

I think I'll also upgrade my email subscription service (once I'm about to publish to Amazon) to a paid subscription model, with the incentive for subscribers to receive all future eBooks for free, as part of their subscription.

If you have any other suggestions of your own, I'm all ears.

My business: providing computer support to the elderly

I've been talking a bit about my business idea recently, but I haven't gone into too much detail about it. I think this is because I haven’t wanted anyone else to steal it, but that's really quite silly.

No one's going to steal it, and even if they did, they'd be doing it differently to how I'd be doing it. And they'd be doing it because they stole it, not because they created it as a result of being passionate about it.

So I'll talk about what I intend doing, as part of the 'promotion' of it. At the very least, it'll help me define exactly what it is so that I can move forward with it.

I was just reading an article - Organic startup ideas - which had some great information in it.

There's two types of 'startup' ideas, it seems. Those that organically grow from something you need for yourself, and those that grow from something you see others as needing.

In my case, my business idea is all about what I see others as needing. Let me go into more detail.

To be honest, desktop computers are probably on the way out as a consumable item. Laptops and tablets are becoming far more popular, and the latest iteration of hybrid tablets (interchangeable between a tablet and a laptop) suggest this is the future we're moving towards. At least in the next few years we'll see them gain in popularity.

Tablets are really popular, but only as devices of domestic convenience. They're not very good for doing actual work on them. But mix them with a connected keyboard that can be removed, and you've got a device that lends itself to productivity. Include the option to attach external monitors and you've got a replacement for your desktop computer that you can take anywhere and do anything with.

There's an increasing rush to use technology to allow people to stay connected with each other. Social tools are booming in popularity as devices become more popular. But who are they being social with?

It's certainly not with the older people in our lives.

These people are being left out in the cold, so to speak. They're intimidated by the technology that everyone else is using, and ending up feeling disconnected. People are talking about sharing their lives on Facebook, and video calling each other via Skype, and these grandparents out there are increasingly feeling disconnected from the activities of their younger families.

They try to get involved, and they go out and buy computers that no one teaches them how to use. It's left sitting there in the study, gathering dust. Or they play card games on their new $1500 computer that someone told them was a good idea.

They need assistance, and not by people running those 'sheep farm' training studios, where they get 30 people into a room, all of them sit down at a computer and try to follow the instructions being given to them. They're being trained how the trainer wants to train them, not how they want to learn. They're being trained on what the trainer wants to teach them, not what they want to be taught.

What's important to them? It's really very simple - being connected with their family.

How is learning about Word and Excel and PowerPoint going to help a 70 year old keep in touch with her granddaughter?

And so they remain disconnected, watching a world change around them, and increasingly feeling as if they no longer belong.

I want to change that.

I don't expect to change the world with this, but I do expect to change the lives of just some people, and that's good enough.

So my business idea is to provide in-home tutoring to people that want it, with the products that they want to use, to do the things that they feel are important.

Simple question - "What's important to you?"

"To be connected with those we love, so that we can continue being part of their life."

Phone calls are what most of these people use to keep in touch. Occasionally written letters sent using the postal service, with photos printed out and placed in the envelope. But that's a dying practice.

They don't know how to take photos, upload them to a computer, edit them, and then share them via email or Facebook. Things the rest of us take for granted are completely alien to them.

So I want to set up a home based business providing in-home tutoring to people. Visit them in their own home, help them understand and use their own computers, and teach them how to use only the software or social tools that will help them achieve their object - whatever that might be.

It's something I've been doing in my spare time on occasions for the past 15 years. Every time someone hears about how I work in IT, it's suddenly like I'm a doctor.

"Oh, you're in IT? Well, I have this problem with my computer... Do you think you could come over and look at it sometime?"

That's if they have a computer, of course. Sometimes they just ask for advice on what computer they should get so that they can do what others are doing.

So I've been doing after hours tech support for people throughout my life for many years now. It's obviously something I've enjoyed, or I wouldn't have done it. So now it's time to turn it into a business and actually charge people for the support I can give them.

Doing work with something that you're already passionate about is one of the biggest means of finding success with that business. Something that's been a hobby for many years can become a successful business. Start small, doing it after hours, but then when it becomes more popular and my income from it moves towards paying for my daily expenses, I intend quitting my day job so that I can focus on building the business even more.

I don't want to be a Business Analyst forever. I don't want to be working for Enterprise organisations providing support to government departments for projects I have no interest in other than the fact that it's what's expected of me so I can continue being paid.

I want to be doing something I really enjoy, that's helping people get something more from their lives. And helping older people stay connected with their younger family is something that really, really excites me.

There's other elements to this business too.

Providing advice to customers on what computer or device would suit their needs most of all. Instead of a computer, they might best be served with a tablet or even a large-screen smartphone, along with the support to teach them how to use it. Even going out and buying it for them instead of them having to, and saving them from having to deal with salespeople that treat them like idiots for not knowing the ins and outs of the latest technology.

Setting up a subscription service for all customers that provide them with daily emails providing hints and tips on how to use their computer, software and social media. Providing 'free' tech support as part of the subscription, with extra charges for support on top of what's available as part of the subscription.

The subscription service can also be made available globally, to anyone on the internet that wants that kind of support made available to them.

There's a lot about this that I really love, so I'm quite excited about building it.

Exchanging your time for money

We only have so much time available to us in this life, and what do we do with it? We waste it, exchanging our time for money from meaningless jobs, and then we spend that money on meaningless 'stuff'.

Occasionally we spend money on a holiday, trying to exchange the money for more time. But then we have to return to exchanging more time for more money so we can repeat the same meaningless cycle.

How's that working out for you? I can tell you that it's not working out very well for me.

It doesn't make much sense to me that we engage in this behaviour, but we do it because everyone else does. We do it because it's what we're expected to do. We do it because it's safe.

There's not many of us who spend our time wisely, doing things that are meaningful. Most of us just waste our time, and then before we know it, the years have gone by and we wonder where all that time went. We're running out of time, and we have little to show for it.

I think it's a much better idea to earn money without having to exchange my time for it.

You're probably thinking, how does that work?

Setting up a means of earning money without your active involvement is one way of doing it. For example, let's say you're currently exchanging 40 hours of your time each week for $1,000 a week. What if you could work only 4 hours a week for that same $1,000? You now have more time available to you while earning the same amount of money.

You could spend that time on things that are meaningful. Like with your family, your children. Your time would become far more valuable to you because you're able to do more with it, while still earning a reasonable income to support the extra time you're earning.

Many people think if they want to make more money they have to spend more of their time. That's not my goal.

My goal is to spend less of my time to earn more money. And then I want to have my money continuously increasing without me having to spend more time on it, so that the more money I earn, the more time I'll have available to me.

That's what I'm currently striving for.  I want to build a business that will earn me money without me exchanging a great deal of my time for it.

I'm in the process of setting it up. I think it's got a good chance of success, as long as I do it right. I'm still working out the details of how I do it right.

But there's also the idea that instead of waiting, I should just set it in motion. Create it and then modify it as it grows, or as I seek to improve it.

What am I waiting for? I'm not sure. I think I'm just wary about 'what if it doesn't work out?' But you never know if something will work or not until you try it.

So I'll be starting it this week.

Coming up with a business plan

In all my years as a Business Analyst, I've never done a Business Case. Until last week. Now I'm an expert at them. At least, according to my employers, I am. But it's interesting to me that I've learnt about them at this moment in my life, because right now I'm considering a business idea.

It's something that came to me while I was on holiday a month ago, and which has been festering in my mind ever since.

Providing home tutoring for the elderly on how to use productivity tools on their computers, as well as how to use the internet and social media.

I got a massage tonight from someone in her 50s, and I was talking about it with her. She loved the idea so much she wants to be my first customer.

She also agreed with me that there's definitely a market out there of elderly people who've got no idea how to use their computers and social media to enhance their lives and keep in touch with loved ones.

So this festering idea is gaining strength.

I like the idea of also providing a subscription service that allows 'free' telephone tech support and advice, but if something requires a home visit to fix a problem or implement something I advised, then that would obviously cost extra.

So I think I'll do up a business case, now that I know how to do them. And follow that with a business plan.

I'm quite excited about this.