I’ve had many conversations with business owners who have asked variations on this question... By “giving away” our knowledge and expertise on social media, are we doing ourselves or our profession a disservice?

Short answer is no.

Longer answer is N-O.

“But how does that gel with charging my worth?” is usually the next question.

1. Charging your worth is about valuing the services you are selling in your business, valuing the time you’ve put into training in your profession, valuing your years of experience, valuing the financial risk you carry as a business owner, valuing the power of your reputation ... and not being afraid to charge for your services at a rate that is respectful of all of these things.

2. Giving it away ... Providing freely available content on social media or via your website (etc) is a great way to offer value to your broader community on a grand scale. You as an individual, even your business as a collection of individuals, can’t possibly service EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the planet ... but that’s exactly the potential you have on social media - providing freely available information that is helpful and potentially life-changing to every single person on the planet. That’s a feel-good thing, right?

3. AND by giving away so much of your knowledge and expertise and experience via blog posts, videos (or whatever floats your boat), you will feel more comfortable with charging appropriately for the more ‘bespoke’ services you offer to your direct clients. And those clients get to know your service and whether it’s likely to be right for them because they’ll have seen some of your free content. Win win!

4. BUT this does not mean you are a charity! Know the difference between 1:1, 1:Few, and 1:Many. Charge appropriately for the direct client-to-client or business-to-business work you do. Provide exciting (to you and your audience) free content to your broader community.

5. And most of all, have FUN with it. Be rebellious, be entertaining, be informative.

Much love,

Tess x

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Dr Tess Crawley

Tess is an Australian clinical and forensic psychologist with over 20 years' experience in such diverse areas as community mental health, the prison system, perinatal mental health, university lecturing, and private practice.

Tess has a PhD in clinical psychology, has published one business-related book and is in the midst of writing a second. She is also a former actor, which some say explains a lot! In fact, she met her husband of 30+ years while they were involved in a Melbourne stage production of Macbeth (also explains a lot!).

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