Your Value Lies in Creating Possibilities

Several years ago, my wife and I were in Rome, and, of course, we had to visit the Vatican. I bought a package that included a predawn breakfast and an early admission to the Vatican Museum.

When we arrived that morning, we were ushered into a roped-off area, past a queue already forming at the locked doors, in which a hot breakfast buffet was being served. The breakfast was lovely and perfectly adequate, yet not exactly what you’d call a premium meal.

As we enjoyed our meal, a couple at the table next to us was having a conversation about how much they’d spent for the experience.

“I can’t believe we’re paying this much money for breakfast,” one said.

“It’s not about the breakfast,” replied her partner.

He was right, of course. The breakfast was ok, but if that’s what you were expecting to be the source of your value after spending several hundred dollars, you’d be sorely disappointed.

The value is in skipping the line, for sure. The value is in avoiding a herd. But for my wife and I, the value was quite specific.

For us, the value was being able to experience the relative quiet of the Sistine Chapel leisurely without feeling like a sardine, freshly canned, looking skyward.

As we reflected on our experience later, my wife and I agreed that the “breakfast,” if anything, was underpriced relative to the value we took from the visit. We’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Your Value is in What Your Service Makes Possible

As professional service providers, we like to talk about our “breakfast.” We feel like we need to prove our expertise. We describe processes and procedures as if that were the primary attractor for clients.

It’s akin to the folks running our tour coming out to explain how they make the eggs so fluffy, bake the muffins, or squeeze oranges for the juice, when all we want to do is finish breakfast and get inside.

The metaphorical breakfast you serve is just the path to something much bigger and better. It’s their satisfaction that comes from your removal of a bottleneck in their business. It’s in the peace of mind that comes from the resolution of a previously intractable problem behind them.

But the value doesn’t end there. The truly immense value is couched in what curing that business bottleneck allows them to do that was impossible before. It's the fresh restart allowed by a new mindset a business owner now has because of your transformative work, a new beginning they didn't ever thing they'd get to experience.

Your value lies in creating possibilities that didn't exist before you came along.

Without paying several hundred dollars for a breakfast, my wife and I wouldn't have been able to enjoy standing in an uncrowded Sistine Chapel or recall the great memories of that experience.

You Won't Know Unless You Ask

It's this transformative value that service providers most often fail to dig into, not just with prospective clients, but those who've benefitted from their work.

It starts with the willingness to ask a series of questions, something like this:

--What would successful completion of this project mean for your business? What would it enable you to do that you can't do today?

--[Client answer]

--And what would that [whatever the client answered] further enable?

--[Client answer]

--And upon reaching that circumstance, where would it put your business?

--[Client answer]

--And what would all this mean to you professionally and personally?

--and so forth . . .

If exercising the patience to ask such questions of prospective clients is new to you, then practice by talking to your happiest clients. Ask them to think about the daisy chain of possibilities that your work created.

They--and you--will see the cause and effect of your work that might not have been contemplated by either of you.

You'll go into future meetings with clients and prospects with a greater willingness to raise these questions instead of rushing to "make the sale."

And when that happens, you have the basis from which to garner better pricing for your services.

#pricing #value #services #vatican #pricevaluejourney

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Are you frustrated by your pricing? Need help articulating your value? Do you need a better way to identify and close your best-fit clients? Do you want to restore the joy you used to have for your business? I may be able to help you.

I’m a business consultant, coach, author, and podcaster. I advise solopreneurs and small professional services firms on their two most frustrating problems: pricing and business development. I’m passionate about how changes in mindset, positioning, and pricing change the trajectory of a business and the lifestyle choices of a business owner. My clients are professionals who are selling their expertise, such as consultants, coaches, attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners. Click here to learn more, or contact me directly.

I’m the author of the national bestselling book, The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices. The book covers topics like value and adopting a mindset of value, pricing your services more effectively, proposals, and essential elements of growing your business. The book is available at all major physical and online book retailers.