June 16, 2021

Success story from reader Matthew Crews

Fellow list member Matthew Crews wrote in with a success story in response to a couple of my recent messages (shared with permission):

Hi Jonathan!

Loving the podcast and these emails. I had a call this morning where a client was looking for guidance on a project. He wanted a technical expert to talk about a project and different approaches that could be taken. He wanted to hire me as a retainer for the project to provide mentoring/coaching. I quoted a price that was 50% above what I would have happily done it for. He enthusiastically said yes.

My takeaway, If you are exactly what someone is looking for, they will happily pay a premium for you.

As I see it, Matthew’s success to two-fold:

Matthew found a price that was mutually profitable to both parties. In other words, he was very happy to commit to the engagement because he’ll enjoy a healthy profit margin (i.e., 50% over his base cost), and the client was very happy (i.e., “enthusiastic”) to pay it because access to Matthew’s technical expertise is worth more than the quoted price.
Matthew sold his brains, not his hands. At some point, Matthew shifted his identity from “I do X” to “I know how to do X”, and has found a way to sell that know-how instead of selling his labor.

Bravo!

Yours,

—J