many of these unusual businesses thrive by giving things away, recruiting a legion of fans and followers who support their paid work whenever it is finally offered.

How can you construct an offer that your prospects won’t refuse? Remember, first you need to sell what people want to buy—give them the fish. Then make sure you’re marketing to the right people at the right time.

You can start your own affiliate program very easily (a four-step startup guide is available for free at 100startup.com

A key rule for all these activities is to initiate, not respond. Doing this for just forty-five minutes a day can bring huge rewards even when everything else is crazy and you spend the rest of the day putting out fires.

Promoting other people’s work and sharing links to interesting articles is fine, but don’t expect that merely doing that will help you gain followers or attention. People follow you (or your business) because that’s what they’re interested in—you. I follow Shaquille O’Neal’s tweets and posts because I’m interested in what he has to say. If he spent

The more I focus on these things, the better off I am. In short, they are as follows: 1.Price your product or service in relation to the benefit it provides, not the cost of producing it. 2.Offer customers a limited range of prices. 3.Get paid more than once for the same thing.

The easiest way to understand convergence is to think of it as the overlapping space between what you care about and what other people are willing to spend money on.

Having done this for a while, Kyle knows that what her clients want and what they say they want may be different—and she also knows that the families of the bride and groom may have preferences of their own.

When you get stuck, ask yourself: How can I give more value? Or more simply: How can I help my customers more? Freedom and value have a direct relationship: You can pursue freedom for yourself while providing value for others.