As someone who's been a subscriber to my emails for a long time you've no doubt heard me mention the concept of “Value in Advance” quite a few times.

Normally when I talk about it I discuss how by making sure your marketing delivers value to your potential clients (a free report, a high value briefing etc.) you generate much more interest and goodwill and get connected with way more people who are actually interested in what you have to offer.

But there's another element to Value in Advance I usually don't mention.

It's that giving Value in Advance is a strategy that you're much more likely to do. 

Now I'm not arguing that it's easier than traditional promotional marketing. In fact the reverse: it takes time and effort to create the value you're going to give away free.

But the key thing is that for most of us, we don't like being promotional. We don't like pushing our services on other people. We don't like showing off about how good we are.

But we do like helping people.

So a Value in Advance strategy is powerful both because potential clients like it, but also because you'll feel comfortable doing it.

And marketing you feel comfortable doing gets done. Marketing that makes you feel like you're being pushy or promotional doesn't.