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Do you have questions about how to improve your business?
Things like:
Do you have questions about how to improve your business?
Things like:
- Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?
- Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?
- Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?
Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.
Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.
To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to:
https://jonathanstark.com/call
I hope to see you there!
Creators and Guests
What is Ditching Hourly?
For solo professionals who want to make more and work less without hiring.
Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. Let's talk about the word commoditized. Freelancers and consultants and coaches and other independent professionals probably hear this word a lot, specifically with regard to downward pressure on their prices. But broadly speaking, this is a metaphorical use of the term commoditized. The root of the word commodity has a very specific meaning in economics. From Wikipedia, most commodities are raw materials, basic resources, agricultural or mining products, such as iron ore, sugar or grains like rice and wheat. The largest commodity markets trade in things like oil, natural gas, gold, silver, sugar, wheat and so on. A distinguishing factor of commodities is that they are highly interchangeable with the same commodity from another producer. This is called fungibility and what it means is that buyers don't really care who they buy a given commodity from. In other words, sugar buyers don't see a meaningful difference between the sugar from supplier A and the sugar from supplier B. For practical purposes, it's all about the same to the buyer. Except for one thing. When all else is equal, there is one distinguishing characteristic that every buyer finds meaningful. A lower price. Again, from Wikipedia. The wide availability of commodities typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors such as brand name other than price. Okay, but yeah, there's a big difference between a pound of sugar and a web developer or a copywriter or photographer or dance instructor or whatever it is that you do. Service providers are people gosh darn it and all people are different. Yeah, yeah, this is true. You and I and the next person are all special snowflakes. But your clients don't buy you. They buy a service that you provide. Of course, a client will recognize that as a person, Alice is different from Bob who's different from Carol. But if all three of them make websites and the client can't really tell the good work from the bad work, then the differences between them are not meaningful to the client. In a case like this, how will the client differentiate between Alice, Bob, and Carol? Okay, say it with me. Based on price. Here's the thing. The way to avoid downward price pressure is to avoid commoditization. And the way to avoid commoditization is to appear meaningfully different to your buyers. Doing so means making some hard strategic decisions. The kind of decisions that will feel risky. Things that will set you apart from the crowd. That will push you outside of your comfort zone. But if you want to escape the race to zero, that's exactly what you have to do. That's it for this week. I'm Jonathan Stark, and I hope you join me again next time for Ditching Hourly. Bye. Hey, Jonathan again. Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like value pricing your work instead of billing for your time. Or positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space. Or maybe productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal. Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes you to get ready for work in the morning. Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word and I'll refund your purchase in full. To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to JonathanStark.com slash call, C-A-L-L. That URL again is JonathanStark.com slash call. Hope to see you there. Hey, Jonathan again. Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like value pricing your work instead of billing for your time. Or positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space. Or maybe productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal. Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes you to get ready for work in the morning. Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word and I'll refund your purchase in full. To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to JonathanStark.com slash call, C-A-L-L. That URL again is JonathanStark.com slash call. Hope to see you there.