Commanding a premium in the marketplace is not about reaching a destination – it’s about crafting and re-crafting your journey as long as you want to play the game.
If commanding a premium is on your wish list, consider the following three elements:
1. Unique Ability + Social Proof
You should have some unique ability that will solve a real problem for your target audience or alternatively will open up a new set of possibilities for them. Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach Program says, your unique ability is a combination of your personal talents, passions, and skills. Dan says most people have not taken the time to identify their unique ability.
A quick example: If you are an amazing negotiator and love that craft, you can help your clients get more profits through your negotiation skills.
The second part of the equation is equally important. You need social proof to make other people believe that you do HAVE that unique ability. Otherwise, it’s a
2. Smart Marketing + Strong Identity
The way people find out about who you are has changed completely. Gone are the days of “on the face” advertising. What works now is that you demonstrate your knowledge by giving at least part of it online (books, presentations, eBooks, audio, video) and offline (seminars, panel discussions, workshops, webinars). The “smart” part comes when you get yourself embedded and engaged in the community rather than trying to pontificate your ideas.
The second part of the equation – a strong identity will help you tremendously with your marketing as a super strong identity lowers the marketing costs by a wide margin.
3. Relevance + Perceived Value
Your unique ability has to be relevant to the current marketplace. If it is relevant, the underlying concerns that are looking to be addressed will be part of the conversations in the community of your target audience.
This is easily verified and validated by the second part of the equation (perceived value). If the marketplace assigns a high perceived value, there is a good chance that it passes the relevance test.
All three are important
If you are covered on “unique Ability + Social Proof” AND “Relevance + Perceived Value,” you have Untapped Potential. You are probably partly invisible to the marketplace
If you are covered on “Unique Ability + Social Proof” AND “Smart Marketing + Strong Identity” you are probably facing a lack of demand due to lack of relevance.
If you are covered on “Smart Marketing + Strong Identity” AND “Relevance + Perceived Value” you are at the risk of being a commodity as there may be many others who bring what you bring to the table. This is one of those situations where everyone together are participating in a race to the bottom.
Cover all three and you have a good chance of commanding a marketplace premium.