|
For years, I've left a lot of money on the table. I'd charge $5000 for a project while my competitors were charging $10,000, $20,000 and even $50,000 for similar projects. Why didn't I charge the same as my competitors? Remember when you were a kid and your mom would say, "Because I said so"? That was the end of the discussion, right? Well, here's what Alastair Dryburgh taught me about pricing: Most of us are still waiting for permission to charge what we're worth. We're waiting for someone to say it's okay. Spoiler alert: Nobody's going to give you that permission. I'm not the only one who's not charging what they're worth. I was talking with a consultant friend last week who charges $2,500 for a strategy session. He was agonizing over raising his rates to $3,000. Meanwhile, his clients regularly make million-dollar decisions based on his advice. See the disconnect? In his book The Pricing Genius, Alastair shares a brilliant story about a marketing agency that was working on pharmaceutical launches. Billions riding on their work. Yet they're haggling with junior managers over the cost of an illustration. It hit me like the '89 earthquake (yeah, the one I barely missed). We're not pricing our work. We're pricing our insecurity. Here's the thing: AI isn't making expertise less valuable. It's making REAL expertise priceless. While ChatGPT can write a blog post, it can't sit across from a CEO and read the fear in their eyes when they're about to bet the company on a decision. That digital agency that went from $5k to $46k? They didn't suddenly become 9x better. They just stopped asking permission and started stating value. Marcus Aurelius said, "What we do now echoes in eternity." Maybe that's a bit dramatic for pricing strategy, but your pricing does echo through every client interaction, every project, every referral. Three takeaways from The Pricing Genius that will change your pricing game:
Ready to stop asking permission? Ted P.S. Join Alastair Dryburgh, Tom Ruwitchand me on Thursday at 11:30 AM Pacific/2:30 PM Eastern to discuss more paradigm-shifting insights from Pricing Genius: [MastermindBook.club] |
Join 60,000+ seasoned professionals who are done with the corporate world. Epic Encore is an almost daily newsletter with inspirational stories from leading experts. Your Epic Encore is about turning your lifetime experiences into the cornerstone of the rest of your life. It represents your audacious leap into entrepreneurship, fueled by the wisdom and tenacity you've garnered in your successful career. This isn't about playing catch-up in business and building a 7-figure business. It's about forging a unique path, using your distinct perspective, seasoned judgment, and invaluable insights that can only come from years of life experience.
After decades in the C-suite, most executives underestimate their most valuable retirement resource: their accumulated expertise. While financial planners focus on portfolio management, the real question isn't how to manage your money, it's how to transform your knowledge into lasting impact. There's a natural evolution that happens when executives leave corporate life, a shift from building resume virtues that advance careers to developing eulogy virtues that define how we're remembered. The...
I remember a project early in my consulting career. I poured my heart and soul into it, working late nights and weekends to deliver something truly exceptional for the client. The results were fantastic, far beyond their expectations. But when I sent the final invoice, based on my hourly rate, it felt… hollow. The number on the page didn’t come close to the value I had delivered. It was a tough lesson: just doing great work isn’t enough. My clients frequently share a similar story with me....
I remember the moment like it was yesterday. I worked for IBM in its consulting division. Like clockwork, I would jump on a plane on Sunday afternoon for my next project. Every week it was another destination where I would work with a client then fly home on Friday night. It was the first time I became a member of United's 1K club, meaning I flew over 100,000 miles in a year. In my mid-40s, I was a road warrior living on planes and in hotels racking up frequent flyer miles and hotel points. I...