Why Paid Advice is Better Than Free
Many people ask for free advice on how to make money online but they hardly act on it, irrespective of quality of the advice. But if some person gets the same advice by paying some money (may be in some subscription forum, website or in conferences) he values that advice a lot and is more likely to act upon it.
The person is not alone in his behavior. All of us value paid advice more than the free advice we get, irrespective of the quality of the advice. Why? Because we feel compelled to justify the steep price we paid to get the advice. This is the reason many people who gets good (and free) advice on how to start their online business but they never acted on it.
There could be another reason we value paid advice. Behavioral psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. This refers to the conflict in the mind when we realize that what we believe to be true is in fact not so. Suppose you receive paid advice that is inconsistent with your beliefs. Yet, you know that you do not throw good money on wasteful advice. You resolve this inconsistency by believing that the advice is worth more than it actually is. And so you act on it.
An experiment conducted recently showed that people tend to value advice based on the price they pay for it. It seems that we value advice the same way we value other goods - the costlier it is, the better it should be.
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Jim Karter on May 26th 2008 in Business
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17 Responses to “Why Paid Advice is Better Than Free”
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harshads responded on 26 May 2008 at 3:23 am #
Yes it’s true that many of us never try to act on free advice but I sincerely follow your guidelines because I found them very helpful.
btw,
I was just surfing on Digital Point and I saw your thread there but your status was “banned”
Why is it so?
Zak Show responded on 26 May 2008 at 5:06 am #
Yes it’s true and normal because people think that when someone give you something for free that mean that it has no value and it’s something that he they don’t need. And also they think that only professional give paid advices and who gives free advicesis an amateur !
klee responded on 26 May 2008 at 8:02 am #
similarly, i have found that people find it hard to believe that you can make money on the internet since there are very little expenses associated with starting websites, other than time.
Apoorv responded on 26 May 2008 at 9:11 am #
First seek for free, if getting a better option then go for Paid
suresh responded on 26 May 2008 at 9:45 am #
True that if you are serious about the job you will pay for it and implement the advice with same sincerity and try to recover the investment.
Kannan responded on 26 May 2008 at 12:40 pm #
My goodness. Jimkarter was permanently banned. May we know the reason jim?
successvilla responded on 26 May 2008 at 6:46 pm #
The reason people seem to work harder on paid advice is to justify the payment. This makes the idea to work as nobody likes to spend money without getting result.
Deepak responded on 26 May 2008 at 7:50 pm #
So you indirectly say that do not download free ebooks on the web and read it and throw it away. If we paid for the same book, we would have implemented the method long back. So true. Great post!
Ankit responded on 26 May 2008 at 8:59 pm #
Very true…
Deepak responded on 26 May 2008 at 10:54 pm #
That is a human psychology….every thing which is free is not worth it!!!It is very hard to fight that mentality.Cant help it
Carol responded on 27 May 2008 at 2:59 am #
I must admitt that you are definitelt true. Many people consider free as cheap. Even it is not always true.
Joel responded on 27 May 2008 at 10:34 am #
Definitely, and smart marketers from Stompernet to the ebook sellers on Digital Point have made a lot of money from this fact - good post!
adidas responded on 28 May 2008 at 3:24 am #
why did you get banned from DP???
Movie Portal responded on 28 May 2008 at 6:07 am #
true…till now I haven’t paid for any advice…almost everything you need is on the web and it’s free…you just have to read a lot
chicago web design responded on 01 Jun 2008 at 1:31 am #
It depends on which side of the equation you’re on
Sanket responded on 10 Jun 2008 at 11:04 am #
when money goes we realize its value its true
Money Making Website responded on 19 Jun 2008 at 6:32 pm #
The Guru’s always say, the more you charge the more value the buyer sees in the product.