Your online business isn’t a charity. If you want to become successful, you need to be compensated for the time and energy that you are putting in.

So today, we’re going to talk about the online business owner’s #1 enemy: freebie seekers.

These are the people who sign up for your email newsletter only to get the free ebook and then unsubscribe. They also show up when you’re doing a giveaway but don’t actually want to buy anything from your business.

So why are you attracting freebie seekers and broke people? Here is how to make it stop now so that you can start getting paying customers.

Start Offering Paid Services

If you know that you offer a product or service that is valuable enough that your average customer would pay for it if it were being offered by some big business, start charging for it now.

There is no reason to simply give away your best work simply because you’re not well-known yet. The truth is that you could end up missing out on thousands of dollars in sales simply because you did not value yourself enough to start getting paid for your hard work.

The best part of this strategy is that it will definitely keep the freebie seekers away because they won’t be willing to pony up the cash for what your offering.

Turn Your Site Into A Membership Site

In addition to charging people for specific products or services, you should also consider turning your site into a membership site. These top membership site software tools make it easy to build a membership site in under a day:

Easy Member Pro

Easy Member Pro is a membership software that is designed for creating secure membership sites. It also offers affiliate management so that you can recruit affiliates to promote your website.

You can set up different membership levels, offer coupon codes, and much more. It will automatically back up your site so that your content is always protected. It also integrates with all of the popular email marketing software and payment options such as PayPal and Clickbank.

WishList Member

WishList Member works with your existing WordPress installation and allows you to create premium memberships for your audience. Whether you want to be able to sell a course, restrict premium content to paying members or allow users to use your site on a membership only basis, WishList Member gives you the option to set up a variety of subscription models for your site.

It integrates with email marketing software, affiliate marketplaces like Clickbank and JVZoo, and multiple payment gateways. You can also integrate it with webinar software so that you can do paid live events as well.

In fact, combining OptimizePress and WishList Member is actually one of the easiest ways to build a membership site. OptimizePress should be used because it is a WordPress software that can be used to quickly landing page and sales page templates for your site. Then just use WishList Member to create the actual membership side of the site.

If you want to see all of the top internet marketers that are already using WishList Member, just go to the Showcase page from the top navigation of the site to watch the introduction video and check out these websites.

If you’d simply like to learn more about building membership sites, at WishList Insider you’ll find dozens of training videos that teach you everything from how to make different kinds of memberships profitable to building an audience for your membership site.

Stop the Giveaways With No Commitment

Instead of trying to get people to lower their guard about giving you their personal information with free stuff, you need to rethink your offer.

Perhaps, you are giving things away because you simply don’t think your offer is good enough for people to buy outright.

So try this instead: Clearly tell the prospect what they’ll get, why they should want to buy it from you, and how to get it. Then you can add in some bonus items only if you add some kind of urgency element to your offer.

One the urgent period has ended, the free bonuses must expire. When you do this, only the paying customers get free stuff while the freebie seekers get nothing.

Stop Promoting to People Who Can’t Afford What Your Offering

Are you trying to selling a $5,000 IM training package to people who are surfing traffic exchanges? When your traffic sources only have broke people and freebie seekers, guess what you’re going to get? No sales!

So if you want to find paying customers who can afford what you’re selling, you have to go to where the luxury customers hang out. Perhaps, they frequent paid membership forums or certain blogs.

Figure out where your customer actually hangs out and advertise directly on those sites to bring in paying customers. By doing anything else, if the traffic doesn’t match your target audience, you’re not going to get sales.

Start With an Entry-Level Product

Too many online business owners let people sign up for their email lists for free. This is the main reason why you keep attracting freebie seekers.

If you let people get something from you for free of course they’re going to take it. The main purpose of your email list is supposed to be figuring out who will buy from you and who your best customers are.

So make customers buy something from you first before you send them followups. The cost of entry-level products range from about $1 to $49. If someone won’t spend even one dollar with you or they’re demanding a discount on an entry-level product, you know they’re a freebie seeker.

However, after you weed out who your customers are, don’t make the mistake of only selling them offers at this same price point. Start offering them continuity products and high ticket offers to keep the cash coming in.

If you want to learn more about how to create your own products so that you have something to sell, I recommend that you check out the following resources:

1. Product Creation: Your First Product in 4 Hours or Less!

2. Online Course Creation – Udemy MasterClass 2018

3. 10 Product Creation Hacks That Work In 2018

What have you done to rid your business of freebie seekers? Share your best tips in the comments below!