Why would anyone pay to get packaging content?

And other things that keep me up at night

I think about this question in the title of the email often over the last few years. It’s something I wake up thinking about and go to sleep thinking about.

And, honestly, I still don’t think I’ve arrived at an answer or answers, but I’m getting close and it’s around this idea…

Most packaging buyers and sellers struggle to get access to trustworthy information and contacts and I have access to them.

In many industries, that information is worth millions of dollars. Think about sports, you are a fan and you want access to in depth information about the team(s) and so you might pay to follow a news person or industry insider to get that information and said person is paid large sums of money by companies to provide it.

And before you say, “well, that’s sports (or tech or politics or fashion or…), remember just how massive and important our industry is in packaging! We literally are the reason people get access to food, water, healthcare, and millions of other products. We are part of a $1 Trillion global economy!

Ok, so back to the question and further expounding upon the answer.

I think people would pay for the content not because of how great of a writer, podcaster, TikToker, etc I am (because I’m not great at those). I think you might want to become a paid subscriber to gain access to the contacts and information that I actually don’t share.

Example - a contact at a company who I do some paid consulting work for reached out to me and said “Hey, I’m going to be at this event and see you know these 2 people. Can you introduce us?” These 2 people, for this person and their company, represent high level decision making at 2 very large companies.

So guess what I did? I made the introductions. They met up. They are now engaged in some very profitable negotiations for both companies.

Would I have done that even if I wasn’t paid? Yes. BUT, would that person have thought to reach out to me if they weren’t paying me? Likely not. It’s like paying for a gym membership. You can easily work out for free. Running, push ups, sit ups, YouTube workouts, all are free. But paying for that membership makes you more likely to do something with it.

Am I wrong here? Would you pay $25-50 a year to get premium content like sales trainings, calendar links to events, and more?

If so, then this month you can get that for $21. Why 42% discount? Because this month I turn 42!

Thanks for reading my ramblings.