This is one of my favorite images, created by Jack Butcher as part of his Visualize Value collection.
The title is Price vs Value. Sources: VV website and Instagram.
After working in the same industry for many years, if you apply yourself diligently to mastering your craft, you develop expertise and eventually become a master.
If you've never seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi, it's an incredible documentary about a master sushi chef in Japan. Please do yourself a favor and watch this if it's available in your area.
Mastery by Robert Greene is also a good book on this topic that I read several years ago.
The value of expertise is that you can often name your own price for the work you perform. People are almost always willing to pay more for your work or advice than for others. In certain luxury industries, they want to pay more as a status symbol (artwork, watches, cars, etc).
Expertise allows you more freedom to be selective about the people you work with and say "no" to clients that you don't want to do business with. Of course we always have that freedom, but as a novice you often want to take every opportunity that comes your way for the sake of experience or income.
This image resonated with me because we are often told that our price is too high. Some people tell us they would prefer to work with us...but can we lower our price to match the price of the "non-expert."
No, we will not lower our price, sorry, not sorry.
The beautiful flip side of that story is that we are also often told. "I'm paying you a lot more than the other contractor, but I know it's worth it." Or "I don't care that you're 50% higher, I'd rather work with you."
For me, there is no greater compliment than when a client says this.
I did some searching on this image and found that it is based on an urban legend of "The Handyman's Invoice."
The story goes:
The huge printing presses of a major Chicago newspaper began malfunctioning on the Saturday before Christmas, putting all the revenue for advertising that was to appear in the Sunday paper in jeopardy. None of the technicians could track down the problem. Finally, a frantic call was made to the retired printer who had worked with these presses for over 40 years. “We’ll pay anything; just come in and fix them,” he was told.
When he arrived, he walked around for a few minutes, surveying the presses; then he approached one of the control panels and opened it. He removed a dime from his pocket, turned a screw 1/4 of a turn, and said, “The presses will now work correctly.” After being profusely thanked, he was told to submit a bill for his work.
The bill arrived a few days later, for $10,000.00! Not wanting to pay such a huge amount for so little work, the printer was told to please itemize his charges, with the hope that he would reduce the amount once he had to identify his services. The revised bill arrived: $1.00 for turning the screw; $9,999.00 for knowing which screw to turn.
Thanks for reading, if you made it this far. I hope you found the topic interesting if you are an expert, or inspiring if you are striving to become one.
