The real danger of sharing your best ideas

👉 it's not giving too much away

In our last newsletter I talked about how worrying that if you give away too much information people won't need to hire you is misguided.

It almost never happens.

Or more accurately, the few occasions it happens are far outweighed by the benefits you get from being generous with sharing your ideas.

The real danger of sharing your ideas is different.

It's not that people will take your ideas and go off and implement them so they don't need you.

It's the opposite.

The big danger is that you overwhelm them with ideas and information and they do nothing.

Now you might think "it's ok if they get overwhelmed - that means they'll ask me for help". But the truth is that if you're the person who overwhelmed them, you're the last person they'll ask.

Instead, you want them to be in a position where they believe that it's possible for them to make improvements, and that you can help them with that.

I've found three types of content work best for that:

1. Diagnostic Content. This is where you help people understand the cause of their problems. Here you're triggering a moment of clarity where things suddenly make sense to them - giving them confidence you'll know the right path forward.

2. New Idea Content. This is where you share a useful new idea or concept, but not the details that might overwhelm someone. It's important that the idea is new to your audience. If it's an old idea without practical details, they won't find it valuable. But a new idea that sets the mind rolling has value in and of itself.

3. First Step Content. This is where you share the practical details of how to get going with a problem and make tangible progress. It's not the whole solution, but it's enough to be valuable in its own right and to give people confidence you can help with the rest.

Our last newsletter was an example of New Idea Content - with the idea being that you can give away valuable content without it resulting in people not needing to hire you.

That idea was backed up with "evidence" in the form of an analogy and an interesting story of what happened when a comedian lost his jokebooks.

What it didn't have was lots of practical details about what to share and how. And it didn't need to - the idea itself was enough and for many people it allowed them to reframe a dilemma they were facing.

This email has been about practical first steps: showing you the three types of content you can focus on to avoid overwhelming people yet still make a great impression.

And hopefully, it's given you just enough to be able to get going...while whetting your appetite for more :)

And if all goes well, that's exactly what you'll be getting in the next newsletter.

- Ian