There is a school of thought that says that you should never give away your best stuff.
Instead, it you should put it behind a paywall somewhere, charging admission so you can profit from its release — one transaction at a time.
I've always felt this to be a bit short sighted, instead believing that you should give away nearly everything you create.
The idea is simpler than it sounds — by giving away your knowledge, your audience will reward you by seeking your next piece of knowledge (perhaps the part that you charge for), thereby enabling yourself to make a living.
In the case of the AF Project (my crusade to bring metrics-based decision-making and humanistic behavioral psychology to the gym business), I started by giving it away — a free four-hour business Seminar. And by loading it with way more info than might be considered prudent by the paywall crowd, I was rewarded with approximately 1/10th of participants taking me up on the AF Project 2.0 (a $399 nine-hour Seminar that covered my bills for a full year).
Now, I'm going to begin the process of giving that away, publishing the AF Project on this blog.
Here's the plan:
I'm going to give away both slide decks from my Seminars, right here, right now — for the AF Project 1.0 and the AF Project 2.0.
They're full of insights into running a good gym, and all you need to do to get them is punch the hyperlinks above.
(They're also the outline for the AF Project book, which I've long promised to write, and which I'll be banging away on daily while publishing drafts, chapters, and charts to this site.)
If you want to be notified when each chapter goes live on this blog — (Chapter 1 in rough form by end-October), just sign up for my email list below.
And I'll send you an email every time I publish.
So what's the rub?
Simple — when I actually publish the book, every chapter in bound form, I want you to buy it even though you already have it.
So why the "everything free, no tricks, pay if you want" model?
We'll consider it mutual insider knowledge — a massive repudiation of the idea that everything in the world that's worth a damn costs money, along with support for the idea that people are strong enough and good enough to recognize and reward the things that are worth rewarding.
Enjoy the decks, and sign up for the email list below. And as always, thanks for your love and support.
Best,
Jon