Why you first have to give to receive

In today’s day and age, everything is fast-paced. People want information on the go, consumer mentality is more present than ever, the number of products and services offered on the market is growing as you read this. In this frantic world, however, it is important to build relationships and communities. The reason behind this is what we just described, there is too much information, ads, and channels out there. So you can’t just appear out of nowhere and start selling your service or a product right off the bat, without any background. You may have some initial success but in the long run, you will need something more. You need a story behind your work. People must know why you do what you do and how it relates to them, and how will it help their business or personal life. Because frankly, what you are offering is probably being offered in a lot of other places as well. So in order for the customers to choose you, you must build your brand, tell your story, and grow an audience and customer base.

Growing your audience

You can grow your audience in a number of different ways, but it all comes down the fact that you have to first invest and put out quality material, whatever it is. For example, if you are trying to sell a digital product about health and fitness, first you need to prove to your audience that you know what you are talking about. You will do that by talking about health and fitness obviously, by writing some articles and/or making some videos about it. Then later, after people realize you know your stuff, you can start considering making a product that will cover all topics in that area, and that will be a valuable addition to peoples lives. And people will consider buying something from you more if they trust you, and if they have seen what you know and can do for them. If someone has watched 5 of your videos on weight loss/muscle gain and liked them, they are much more likely going to be your customer, unlike somebody who is also interested in that topic but has never heard of you before. Elliot Hulse is a perfect example of this. Today Elliot is a famous Youtuber, fitness, strength and spiritual trainer; but he has started from the ground zero. All he was doing was pumping iron and pumping out videos (pun intended). At first, he wasn’t paid for his work, but as time passed by, he gained more following and was able to monetize his efforts. His two Youtube channels have combined 2.5 million subscribers, which is not surprising since he has put in a lot of work, with over 2000 videos published. He has always been really active interacting with his fans, replying to comments, making Q&A videos and answering questions from his audience. He cared about his audience, put out a lot of great content, and in the end, it paid off. Here is one of his videos where he answers the questions from his fans:

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

The concept of giving first and receiving later was maybe best described by Gary Vaynerchuk in his book ”Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to tell your story in a noisy social world”. By using a boxing analogy, he talks about giving free products or free content as jabs and going for the sale or a subscription as heavy right hook hits. Gary says that great marketing is all about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you are selling, and he encourages companies and businesses to interact with their followers and clients in a way that is going to be helpful and educational, so when an offer comes up they are happy to buy your product.  The book was a great success, and a lot of people realized that there is no sale (knockout), without the setup (jab). Here you can see the video where Vaynerchuk describes his philosophy:

How do we do it in Kontra?

Here in Kontra, we are always working on the production of content that will engage our existing and future audience. If you go to our blog, you will find a lot of different topics in Marketing, Design, Development, and Business. Also, you can download our e-books, or watch one of our webinars. Our CEOs, Petar and Ilija, are also doing free seminars and lectures. You can see Ilija giving a lecture on this picture:

The topics that we discuss is what we do, it is what we are good at and we are sharing it with the world for free. By doing that we are able to educate our audience and build connections, and it helps us to be recognized as experts in our field. Later, some of the people that were following our content became our clients, collaborators or employees. We first gave and then we received, we first jabbed and then we right hooked. It’s a win-win philosophy, and that’s why it works well.

So how are you going to do it?

Today almost every business should be on Social Media, and businesses should have a good strategy on how they are interacting with their audience. The key is to produce quality content that is going to engage your target audience, using whatever platform your audience is at. You just need to stay focused, and keep shipping.