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Should You Give Away Your Secrets in a White Paper?

By Michael Stelzner

Does it ever makes sense to give away your secrets in a white paper?

This is a question that I hear a lot—and it might be one that you’re pondering. When does it make sense to share the very secrets that make you great?

This is the essence of a question I received over email from Andy Marker.

He wrote:

I feel I’m dumping all my experience and thoughts about what I have done onto a piece of paper and this is theoretically quite valuable, personally if not to others.

I can’t really see the value in writing this up and then distributing to various people who basically can just say ‘thanks’ and build a program structured off of what I have written–not needing me anymore.

With this in mind, is it wise to create a document that includes the 1st page and then the table of contents with a note that basically says –’Hire me and I’ll let you read this…’?”

Andy, here’s my answer:

What I’m about to say may surprise you.

Let Lose The Ideas

You indeed do need to give away your secrets. However, you also need to hide a few.

What am I talking about? It’s a concept that I like to explain as “useful but incomplete.” And what this concept means is you need to provide content that is very valuable to your target reader while at the same time not giving away everything that that person will need to implement your ideas.

A Practical Example

I wrote a piece called “How to Write a White Paper: A White Paper on White Papers.” In that paper, I gave away some key nuggets of knowledge regarding crafting compelling white papers.

Yes the paper contained a lot of valuable information that would enable anyone to begin crafting white papers. However, my prospect wasn’t just anyone. I was actually seeking a very specific type of clientele. I knew, when I wrote the piece that indeed I would be enabling some people (even competitors) to create white papers without using my services. But I also knew that I would be convincing others that the process is too complicated and they need the assistance of an expert.

Why This Works

You see, no matter how much you reveal  in your white paper, it still won’t come even close to the expertise that you bring to the table. Instead, it will convey your expertise to the reader and oftentimes compel them to want to contact you to learn more.  Another case in point: my book contains hundreds of pages on how to craft white papers, yet I still am regularly contacted by businesses that want to hire me. Get the picture?

The key “take home message” is this:  you must provide very valuable information to your ideal reader to prove to them that you indeed are an expert. This means sharing proprietary secrets with the hope that it will persuade prospects that you’re an expert. The typical result of a reader will be, “If they shared all this great knowledge, how much more will I gain by working with this individual?”

By the way, this entire blog post was crafted using a MacSpeech Dictate–a great little program that allows me to speak rather than type (my fingers love it).

Got a question about white papers? If so, e-mail it to mike@writingwhitepapers.com with the subject line “Ask Mike” and I may answer your question right here in my blog.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Writing White Papers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Giving away some secrets are OK, as most people out there simply do not have the time to actually do it themselves. They might give it a bash, and some individuals will go all the way because of their personality type and skill levels, but the majority of people will simply be owerawed by the sheer magnitude of the task facing them, and leave it to the experts to execute the task on their behalf.
  • Hi Mike,

    I agree with your approach. Even people that had planned to do some writing on their own will look at a good document and think "Why bother? This person can do it so much better than me."

    It seems like the more I share and give away, the more that comes back.
  • As your Apprentice, Mike, I'm learning that lots of your nuggets of wisdom are also paralleled by great copywriters, like our mutual friend, Bob Bly, among others (light bulbs are going off everywhere!).

    Indeed, giving away choice nuggets of information is classic in copywriting--particularly in Direct Response--and so is holding back enough information to whet the appetite for more. :)

    However, I've also found out from practical experience that it's like pulling hen's teeth to get some business owners to buy into this strategy in marketing. They don't believe it works... that they'll be ripped off by a) greedy customers, or b) sneaky competitors. It's almost wired into them!

    So here's a question for you: Other than citing successful example statistics chapter and verse, how do you convince the close-to-the-vest company executive that may be thinking of having you write a white paper that they're not stepping off the edge of the earth in divulging some of their secrets? Is showing them stats the only way? What if you don't have a track record yet?
  • The more you give the more you get. Most people don't want to DIY they want to pay someone to get the job done right. It's always good to give prospects a free sample of your expertise, and if you do the job right then people think "wow, if the free stuff is this good ..." :)

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  • I've experienced this very thing. At first I was angry and felt that my ideas were "stolen". But later I realized that even if some people take the information I provide and use it as if it were their own, in the end they don't have the background I have. They will only be able to go so far, and the shallowness of their knowledge will eventually haunt them. I'm not sure I would want to work with those types of people anyway. I'd rather target those clients that Mike describes - they see your expertise from the information you provide and understand that the best thing they can do is hire you to get the job done right.
  • I like the way you think Mike. One of your video clips from a few months ago also pointed out that by "giving away" solid value you do yourself a lot more good than harm. Of course you'll always get the 2% that will try and use your information to go it themselves, but most people just don't have the time, and by making them realize they lack the expertise (for lack of better words), you sure are creating yourself some great opportunities.
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