by: AskPat 572 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 572 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.
Okay, here is today's question from Jakub.
Jakub: Hi, Pat. Jakub from Slovakia here. First of all, thank you for the content you provide. It's a big help and very inspirational. I have a question for you I hope you can answer. I'm struggling with it for a long time and can't figure out how to do it. Here it is. I'm writing an ebook I want to sell, but I want to have two options of this ebook available to buy. One, it will be just only the ebook, and the second will be a bundle containing the ebook with some bonuses and for a higher price. I really like when these bonuses are interviews with some successful people, but I don't know how to ask them for making these interviews. I don't have a problem to contact them and ask them for the interview. The problem is that I am selling the interview to my customers, so should I pay them for the interviews some fixed price or offer some shares from earnings from the bundle, or are these interviews usually made just for free by these authorities? I really don't know how to proceed with this. I will be glad if you can help me with your opinion. Thanks.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Jakub. Thank you so much for the question. If you're including other people in your courses or whatever it is that you're selling, you do need their permission. That's for sure. You don't want to get in trouble for any of that stuff. Do you have to pay them? Not necessarily. I've done this before where I wasn't paid, but typically it's pretty standard that you offer them something, a higher commission rate, for example, as an affiliate, an exclusive opportunity to promote that product, for example, which will help you with sales even more. That's pretty standard. However, it doesn't always make people say yes to the opportunity. Hopefully these interviewees are people that you have interviewed and have a relationship with who would be more than happy to do this for you anyway.
For some people that I do this for, I don't ask for anything in return just because they've provided a lot of value to me, so this is my way of paying them back. But that said, you can offer to pay them something. You can offer them to—you could do a service for them instead. You could do some pro bono work. There's a lot of different ways to do it. You just have to get their permission, though. I would check with a lawyer or some sort of attorney to make sure you get that done in the right way. I know some people who do it with just say “yes” in the email. That will be the confirmation that you're okay with me doing this, or it can get all the way up to signing a document and having a contract involved, just to make sure that all the holes are plugged. You can go in that way too. You definitely want people to have in some formal way say yes, though. I think that's really important.
You know, this is a pretty easy question. You think about it the other way, for example: If you do an interview and then you don't tell people that that's going to be included in one of your paid works, for example. It could just—I mean, it's possible for you to get in legal trouble for that, like if they're not happy with that and they sue you for whatever reason. That's more unlikely than this scenario, which is they just aren't cool with it and they aren't going to be happy with you for it. That might sever that really important relationship. You know, these people you interview, those are long conversations that you have that could be the budding of a new relationship that you can then take into your business for years to come and be a mutually beneficial relationship for both of you. You don't want to sever that, so just use common sense. But also, yes, you do have to let them know that that's something you're going to do, and also, you want to get their permission to do it. That's what I would say.
Jakub, thank you so much for the question. I really appreciate it. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page. I also want to thank all of you who have picked up my new book, Will it Fly?, especially those of you who have recently picked up the brand new audio book. I'm stoked about that because the audio book, I read it myself, I narrated it, and it was a lot of fun to do. I think you're going to enjoy it. If you like AskPat and love listening to the podcasts, you're going to love that book. WillItFlyBook.com is where to go to check that out. Again, it's available on Audible if you want to check it out too.
Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, and here's a quote to finish off the day by Frederick Douglass. He said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you on the next episode of AskPat. Bye.