May 22, 2025

Back to Basics

A new subscriber wrote in to ask why I haven’t sent any pricing-related emails in the last week or two.

Fair question!

After all, I describe this list as a “daily newsletter on pricing for independent professionals”.

So what gives?

Some Context

My daily email is usually based on what I’m most inspired by business-wise on any given day.

This is often something that directly relates to pricing expertise-based services.

Lately, however, I’ve been most inspired by how I’ve been using ChatGPT and similar tools to improve my productivity.

This translates to decreased costs, improved outcomes, and increased profitability, all of which are closely related to pricing.

And of course, the implicit goal of better pricing is to improve your profitability - i.e., to work less and make more without hiring.

HOWEVER...

I looked over the posts from the last two weeks, and it’s been pretty heavy on AI boosterism, with a dash of advocacy for podcasting and daily writing.

Today, I thought I’d zoom out so everyone can see the entire map and how the various topic areas intersect.

My Three Core Topics

The three core topics I talk about are:

1. Pricing
2. Positioning
3. Publishing

If I were only going to write about one thing, it would be pricing.

BUT...

You can’t support premium pricing without strong positioning.

AND...

It’s hard to have strong positioning without a regular publishing habit.

The Profitability Venn Diagram

I picture this combination of Pricing, Positioning, and Publishing in my mind like a “Profitability Venn Diagram”:

You need all three components to command premium fees.

• Without good pricing, you end up with no profits
• Without clear positioning, you end up creating no value
• Without regular publishing, you end up with no leads

My recent podcasting and daily writing posts are subcategories of the publishing category.

And because I do so much publishing, the AI stuff is a subset of a subset of the publishing category (even though I don’t use it for any actual writing or synthetic speaking).

So yeah...

I can see that my focus has been getting pulled away from the “primary colors” of my subject area into a rabbit hole with no apparent connection to the stated purpose of this list.

Back to Basics

All that said... stay tuned for a return to my core topics (and relevant subtopics):

1. Pricing
   • Writing proposals
   • Negotiating with clients
   • Creating productized services
2. Positioning
   • Validating a target market
   • Choosing a positioning statement
   • Writing effective sales copy
3. Publishing
   • Starting an email list
   • Hosting a podcast
   • Engagement farming on social

Thanks to Nick for writing in!

Yours,

—J

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