The Economic Value of Your Professional Business

Of all of the concepts I develop in my book, The Alignment Doctrine, perhaps the most important for professionals to understand is this: The economic value of your professional business over a lifetime is what the consuming public perceives the worth of your Giftedness to be to them.

There was a time that you could graduate from professional school and open an office above a muffler shop and all the good work you could ever want would just walk in. But for most of us in most professions, it just doesn’t work that way any more.

Today’s consuming public has plenty of choice, and you’re just one item on their menu. The internet savvy consumer can taste samples of your work, and that of all your competitors, and will likely know quite a bit about you before they make their first appointment. If they do.

Consumers of professional services are like any other consumers– they are driven in part by price, in part by taste, and in part by need.

If what you offer is pure commodity (that is, your offering is essentially indistinguishable from that of your competitors), you’re in a market driven mostly by price, in which case you’d better get used to working very hard for your money, and learn how to be very efficient. Your business model is closer to that of a fast food outlet than it is to a true professional operation. There’s nothing wrong with this, so long as you understand the game and rigorously apply fast food style practices.

If you market yourself based on consumer tastes, you can do well, so long as you understand that consumer fashions are fickle, and you are smart or lucky enough to keep ahead of the trends in your field. Good surfers seem to be able to find the long waves and ride them forever, but most surfers spend the majority of their time paddling back out into the surf.

But professionals who are able to respond to a particular consumer need are more likely to do best over the lifetime of their careers. The extreme example, of course, is that of oil well fire experts who can charge almost anything they name, in part because time is of the essence, and in part because millions of dollars are going up in black smoke, but mostly because there is nobody else. Their consumers don’t quibble price, the only question is, “When can you start?”

This is why it is so important to have a clear understanding of your unique Giftedness. The narrower your offering, the smaller your client base, but the more they will pay you and the more they will appreciate you. And the larger will grow your reputation, and the greater will grow demand for your service.

Seems simple enough, right?