What’s Your Measuring Stick?

My Value Proposition

I get vendors calling me all the time trying to sell me this or that service and quoting all sorts of prices for them, all while telling me how their product or service will “explode my business.” Thus, over the years, I have developed my own way of determining value propositions. It’s my personal Measuring Stick, and I use it all the time to work out what I will, or will not, invest in.

A good friend of mine, Tyson Franklin, is a podiatrist in Australia, and he calls his The Orthotic Economy. If he is trying to decide, for example, whether to go to a business conference that will cost $3,000, including transportation, food, and accommodations, he asks himself this question: If I charge $500 to fit an orthotic, how many more of them would I have to do to pay for the conference and how easily can that be achieved?

This may seem silly, but it puts things in perspective and works, and can be used by any professional. If you’re a lawyer, you could call it the Will or Speeding Ticket Economy; a plumber, the Leaky Pipe Economy; an accountant, the 1040 Tax Return Economy. No matter what you call it, it works the same way.

If you go to that conference, attend that webinar, or hire that business coach, with that mindset, you will achieve far more in your business. Consider this: What if a $1,000 workshop taught you something that enabled you to attract three more clients or customers per month for a service you can charge $500 for? That one thing that cost $1,000 to discover would then generate $18,000 more in annual income! What if a $6,000 coaching program taught you an automation and efficiency that would eliminate the need to hire an additional full time employee for $40,000 per year?

In looking at the cost of webinars, workshops, and coaching programs, you need to apply your own Measuring Stick to see if it makes sense. If you do, you will find that it leads to much better, and profitable, decisions.