I tried giving away my courses for free. Here's what happened...

Does information want to be free? I used to believe idealistically that, oh, all information should preferably be free. All the creators and teachers online, people like myself should be putting all of our content knowledge out there for free so that humanity can progress more quickly. That was what I used to believe. I've changed my thoughts on that and I'll tell you why. One of the reasons is that I've noticed when I used to put out. I don't. Did you, if you follow me for a long time, I. You may, may or may not remember back when I was really idealistic content. Well, I started out 2009 being more mainstream. You know, those who know my story know, you know, in early years I was like a mainstream marketer. I was doing funnels and learning all kinds of mainstream marketing stuff and charging, you know, high ticket prices for my course. My courses back then get, get this, were $2,000. $2,000. I sold my courses just like the big boys in Internet marketing. Yeah. Aren't you glad that even with inflation, my courses are 1/10 of that price now? It really should be 4,000, $5,000 at this point. But with inflation, you know, but now it's, you know, 2024 prices, $200, $250 for my courses and which anyway, way lower than it used to be. And then, and then I went through a very idealistic phase, 2012 to 2015, where I said all information should be free. I'm tired of being one of those mainstream, you know, what do you call it, mercenary marketers. And I'm gonna just give away my courses for free. Yeah. If you knew me back then, you'd be like, oh, George, I wish I knew you back then. All your, all your courses were free and, you know, 20, particularly 2014. 20. I made the transition from 2012 to 2014, and a lot of my, you know, pretty much all my courses were free in 2013, 2014. And then I started charging. In 2015, I started charging $25 per course. I know you wish you knew me back then as well, Right? Of course. I think today my knowledge is, is even better and my ability to facilitate learning, I hope, is better. Anyway, so I used to believe idealistic everything. And then I started giving away these courses like I told you. And I noticed that couple things. One, signups weren't as high as compared to my paid courses. Interesting, number one. Number two, those who signed up didn't do the course as much as those who had paid for my courses. So the relationship of the student or the Client. You know, when it comes to something free, it is of course very natural that when you don't pay for something you don't value it as much. I know that's not always true. There are some people who are very, very unique and they, you know, take something free as seriously as they take something paid. But the vast majority of people are not like that. Okay? The vast majority of us, when we don't pay for something, we just, just, it's very hard for us to value it as much as if we had paid for something. It's like a deep, you know, brain signal that, okay, I have handed over something that's hard earned money and therefore I am just naturally, my energy is going to just be much more dedicated to, you know, making use of that product. Like I said, it's always true. But vast majority I found is true. And very importantly also I, I, I learned that my own motivation, my own energy wasn't as strong and on, on it, on top of it when I was giving free courses than when I was doing paid courses. I was an idealist. I'm like, I'm gonna, my, I'm gonna have, I might have service orientation, service to other orientation. I want to, I want to really help and give all my energy and passion for free to the world, trusting that somehow enough people will then hire me as a, as a coach. Didn't work out. Didn't work out. This is the, the classic story of idealist hippie turned capitalist. Okay, I mean, I'm joking. Maybe I'm not sure if I'm joking or not, but you could tell me if I'm joking or not. Those of you who, who know me, know my journey. So, so yes, I was an idealist giving away these courses. And I, and I tried, I really, really, really tried it. It was, was not for a lack of trying of giving my best energy to the free courses. But I think the couple of reasons why it, it wasn't, it was very discouraging, it was very, very hard. I'm not a saint, you know, is that one, I wasn't getting paid for it. So no matter how hard I was trying to give energy, there just wasn't as much energy there, there wasn't as much resource because I didn't get any energy back. Well, one, not I got no energy back in terms of money, but number two, I got very little energy back in terms of participation. Like I told you already, those who participated in free stuff, much less, you know, energized than those who participate in the paid Stuff and I think, yeah, anyway, so that was, I learned these two and very important parts of the dynamic. The dynamic from the student client side wasn't as strong, it wasn't as reciprocated. And the dynamic from my side that I didn't have as much accountability and as much energy when I was giving something for free. And actually, you know, interestingly recently I did an experiment, again, this was last year, but pretty recent, where I did a free three week course. Actually, I think right now if you go on my website, it's still free. So those of you who don't want to pay me anything, go to George cow.com SAM S A M3 letters georgecal.com just the word SAM. It stands for Simple Authentic Money Making. SAM. Simple Authentic Money Making. George.com SAM. You can take the course for free for three weeks and then after the three weeks you can decide whether you want to pay for continued access or not. Or you could just access it for free for three weeks. And the three weeks does end. I had someone email me recently say, hey George, I, I took the three free three week course, but I couldn't, I couldn't do it within those three weeks. I say, well, I need to be fair to everybody and I'm sorry, if you want to pay for continued access, you can pay for it. I think it's important to set boundaries, right? I think it's important to set boundaries. I think it creates more integrity of my relationship with my audience instead of like, well, you get it for free and the rest don't. Why, why is that? Oh, because you asked. So, so should the, should the squeaky wheel get the grease? It's not a sustainable business model if that was the case anyway. But back to this shift that I had. So now I started out as a hardcore capitalist and then I became a progressive hippie and then now I think I believe I'm somewhere in the middle here. I'm trying to find, I'm always trying to find a middle way, right, because that's, that's the, that's the true path of virtue is to, to find, you know, understand two extremes and come to a middle way where it is more balanced and realistic while still aiming for a higher consciousness and a higher way of operating in the world. Anyway, I'm, I'm very curious about your comments on, on any of this as you're, as you're listening and watching this. So, okay, so back to where, where I am these days is. I do believe that more of us need to be charging for Information, more of us need to be charging for courses and to. Therefore it's really a question of, I think it's a question of boundaries and self worth. Like if you have low self esteem, maybe from a trauma background, I don't know, you have a harder time charging for stuff. I understand. And it's something to practice. It's something to practice, practice, practice. So that through the practice of charging for stuff you actually create a higher self esteem and hopefully some healing from your trauma. Okay. Or whatever reason you have a low self esteem. And so I've had to practice charging for stuff. You know, it's like I had, I had egoic self esteem in the beginning and I crashed and realized that was not authentic. And then I became low self esteem hippie not charging for anything or not charging for courses and information anyway. And then now I'm hopefully finding a, you know, last, I would say nine years, I'm finding a middle way of a more balanced ego, a more balanced self esteem that's more realistic with the world understanding that boundaries are important. Because here's the thing, if you, oh, people deserve this information. They, they're, they're from a underprivileged background, they deserve this information and I should give it to them. I think that is poor self esteem and poor boundaries. I think there's a bit of self hatred there anyway, that, that's a separate conversation. I think it's poor self esteem, poor boundaries. And just like the person who says, hey, why don't you give me an extra three weeks of access? No. I'm sorry, but no. I need to create boundaries with integrity, with my whole audience. I treat everyone the same, I treat everyone fairly. And so anyway, so the boundaries I find are incredibly important because if you, if you have this idealistic belief that oh, if I just give enough information out there for free, people will decide to eventually pay me for something. They'll, they'll like want to donate to me or something. The, this is the Patreon. The, the Patreon fallacy. Because I had a Patreon too. Did you know back then 2014 when I was giving this stuff away for free eventually I said, well, maybe I should try to get donations right from, from people. And so I started the whole Patreon game and I try to get people to, to donate because I was giving my, away my free courses. And guess what? Even with my relatively larger audience probably back then, I still had a larger audience than you today. Most of you watching this, I got like three donations. It's again it's the question of boundaries. People are so overwhelmed, they say, well, I can get your stuff for free. Why wouldn't I get it for free? You want me to pay? Well, there's so much other free stuff. Let me go and check those stuff out first. You see, it's a question of boundaries. People will not pay you if you're just giving stuff away. And you can. You want to get donations, get. Good luck with Patreon. I tried that game and. But I tried that game nine years ago. Didn't work. I don't think. I still don't think it'll work today with my audience. I don't think most of you would donate. I know you're like, oh, idealistically, yes, I would donate. But then when I asked you to actually do it, you won't. Right? Same thing with my course, my three week course last year when I did the three week experience. I'm like, I'm so curious at the end how many people will essentially donate for ongoing access. You could say pay for. But they've already taken the course, they went through the entire thing. And how many people will pay? And it was a shockingly low number of people. And most people paid at the lowest, lowest level that I gave. I said lowest levels. Like, yeah, it was, it was whatever. Not that great of a course. And a lot of people paid at the lowest level. Like, no, George, it was a great course. I just can't afford it right now. And I understand, I understand, of course, I get it, financial hardship, et cetera. But I still have noticed that even people with financial hardship will still pay full price for another course I give where there's no other option other than full price. And so there's still a question about. And I'm not saying they should. Right. I want you to not be financially stressed, of course. Meaning if you cannot pay, if you're financially stressed paying for any of my courses, you should not pay for any of my courses. You should only consume on my free content. And so I'm, like I said, I'm trying to find a balanced way and I hope you will as well. Where you live, you give plenty of free content on social media, in your email newsletter, on YouTube, etc, like I always teach, Preach. You know, the, the value of giving out free content for the world, for yourself, your own development, for your audience, nurturing, all that. So many benefits, right? But at the same time, you need to charge for courses as well. You need to charge for courses. So I'm going to right now pivot A little bit. And give me one second here. All right, Sorry. Where was I? So you need to charge for your paid courses and not just give out free content. I hope I've made the case. And comment below and tell me if I've made the case or not, if you have any questions about it. At the same time, I want to just take the next couple minutes before I end to talk about what I see the future of paid courses becoming. Okay, given the age of AI and how easy it will be increasingly easy for everybody to just talk to their personal AI to have them. The personal AI give you customized information that you need, create a course for you instantly based on what you need. Right now, as of this recording, it's only really done through words, through text, you know, texting AI and AI writes you back in words. But probably within a year or two, AI will be able to instantly create a course, a video course for you for free, based on whatever topic you want. So I want to learn about this technical topic or I want to learn about this philosophical topic. I want to learn about this current issue. Create a course for me. I, you know, and then you, you could tell the AI to tailor whatever length of course you want. I want a course that's three hours long and split up into, you know, three minute video so it's easy for me to consume. AI will be able to do that for you for free and not. Well, yeah, actually probably for free and within, within five years, but certainly within two to three years, it'll do it for a very, very low, much lower cost than I will charge you. Okay, so therefore, what. How do we think about the future of courses? I just, the first part of this video, I just try to make the case that you should be charging for courses. Okay. And now I'm saying, well, the future is bleak with regards to courses having the competition from AI. Okay, so what do I think about this? I think that for humans or human course creators, the future has to be more about two things. One is your expertise and energy signature. Okay, three things. Sorry. Okay. One is the more in depth expertise you have about your field, the more unique your knowledge will be compared to what AI is going to create. Because AI as you, those of you who use ChatGPT or whatever other AI chatbot you can, when you ask it about your field, you notice that it's. The answers are pretty generic. Why? Because the training data they go with, the vast majority of blog posts on the Internet about your field are all, you know, the average of all that. And when you get really in depth in your field. And when you get more nuanced with your understanding of your field, meaning more unique understanding of your field, your perspective is more unique. Guess what? People are going to seek you out for that unique perspective, number one. Number two, your energy signature. The more you make videos and the more you create free content out there and build an audience like I always talk about and I always try to teach you through my content in my courses, the more you build a true fan audience, the more your energy signature is powerful and unique. And people will say, well, a course with George Cow is going to be way different than a course with AI that chat, chat GPT can make for me, you see. So your energy signature, you got to lean into it, become as authentically you as possible, which is going to be, you know, find about making mistakes. As you can see, this very video itself has, you know, lots of ums and odds and mistakes and pauses, whatever, okay? AI can't, can't duplicate that very well. So you got to be into your human quirks, okay? Your human energy signature. So one is unique perspective and expertise. Two is your authentic human energy signature. The more you put that out there and build a true audience who resonate with the energy signature, the more people want to pay for your courses because AI cannot duplicate that at all. And thirdly, I think course creators need to learn leader, lead group leadership, need to learn how to facilitate co learning human co learning experiences. Have you noticed that all my recent courses I've launched, I, I've talked about how this is a co learning experience because that's something AI can't do. It's like AI can't at this time do a good job of facilitating human experiences yet. Yet. But I think humans facilitating co learning human experiences is just always going to have a well, human feel to it that feels different than how AI does it. So anyway, those three things, unique perspective, nuanced expertise, your strong authentic energy signature and building a true fan audience and your ability to facilitate a co learning experience is what is going to make your courses really unique in the future and still worth very much worth paying for. So I hope this is helpful. Go out and support one of your, the creators you follow. Not me, but go out and find someone who, who doesn't have a big audience yet, but whose content you enjoy and ask them, do you have any paid courses? If not, if you not, can you please create a paid course on this? This is something I would love to buy. Support other creators like this. They'd be so grateful. It's like they, it's like being, you know, being finding water, you know, drinkable water in a dry desert for them when you, when you do this kind of thing for them, feedback for them. So I hope this is helpful. Thank you so much for watching and thank you for being supportive of fellow creators and becoming one of those creators that creates courses that others can support you as well. So looking forward to seeing your comments.