This Is Marketing by Seth Godin

When a song on the radio is free, but the concert ticket costs eighty-four dollars, the
artist can be compensated.
The china and the ticket are souvenirs of ideas, and souvenirs are supposed to be
expensive.
There are countless ways for you to share your vision, your ideas, your digital
expressions, your ability to connect—for free.
And each of them builds awareness, permission, and trust, which gives you a platform
to sell the thing that’s worth paying for.
Trust and risk, trust and expense
The rational thing is to believe that we’re more likely to require trust before we engage in
risky transactions.
And it’s also rational to expect that people are more likely to want more trust before
spending a lot of money (a form of risk). Or committing time and effort.
Many times, though, the opposite is true.
The fact that the transaction is risky causes cognitive dissonance to kick in. We invent
a feeling of trust precisely because we’re spending a lot. “I’m a smart person, and the
smart thing to do would be to be sure I trust someone before investing my life savings (or
my life), so I must trust this person.”
That’s what boot camp is for. The high cost of participation (blood, sweat, and tears)
causes us to become aligned with the group.
That’s why people change at Outward Bound.
That’s why high-end restaurants and hotels can survive bad reviews.
When people are heavily invested (cash or reputation or effort), they often make up a
story to justify their commitment. And that story carries trust.
Every con man knows this. The irony is that marketers who need to be trusted often
don’t understand it.
Lowering your price doesn’t make you more trusted. It does the opposite.
Be generous with change and brave with your business
Generosity in terms of free work, constant discounts, and plenty of uncompensated
overtime isn’t really generous. Because you can’t sustain it. Because soon you’ll be
breaking the promises you made.
On the other hand, showing generosity with your bravery, your empathy, and your
respect is generous indeed.
What your customers want from you is for you to care enough to change them.
To create tension that leads to forward motion.
To exert emotional labor that will open them up to what’s possible.
And if you need to charge a lot to pull that off, it’s still a bargain.