What if you were the only one? And customers had to have (or really really needed) what you were selling. Say cold water at the beach where there was no other water allowed. With limited supplies. The ultimate monopolist. How would you behave?
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely says John Dalberg-Acton. Would you look to soak everyone you can. Charge $50 for each bottle of water at the beach? Or would you be fair? Maybe not the $1 when water is everywhere, but a premium to reflect what it took to be the only one, say $5. What does that look like? Will you sell more water, less water? Do you care if you are going to sell out anyway?
Now imagine that there was one more competitor. Each of you has limited supply as in the first case, but now more than enough to fill the need (i.e., you will NOT both sell out). How do you go about your business? Still reach for the nosebleed prices? No matter what, even if you had some product left over, you would still make a tidy profit at nosebleed prices. If you charged a fair price, you would probably sell everything but maybe make less money depending on how many you sold at nosebleed.
Third scenario – there are many competitors and much more product than buyers. Now what do you do? If you price at nosebleed, no one will buy anything from you. Price too low though and you will not make enough to survive. Likely is you will price to eke out a living, no more no less.
Here is the thing. EVERY creative business lives in the first scenario. You are in the company of one. Period. Your actions, however, can make scenarios two and three become your reality. Think about that – whether you live in a hyper-competitive or non-competitive market is YOUR choice. Make it about process and what your creative business needs to do the work it does and you will find connection and relevance to your art and your clients. Translation: you will live in scenario one for a long, long time.
Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. If you think you are just that good or that you have to do everything relative to your competition (by definition living in an external shadow), you will experience the pain of the market. The best way to delude yourself here is to keep on focusing on the end result. Your art is a function of your creative business’ artistry, not the other way around. Unless you wholeheartedly believe that only you and your creative business do what you do, someone will always be willing to do what you do cheaper. You get paid for what is between your ears and earn a living with what is between your hands.
It costs $35 to get a marriage license in New York City. Add a few dollars for a rose or two and you can go get married. Hmmmm. The average cost of a wedding in NYC is $86,916. That is $86,879 DISCRETIONARY dollars. Nobody needs what you do. Nobody.
When all that you do is a want, you have to understand the power you wield. Yours is about base expression – to reach in to your client and fulfill their vision for moments they yearn for. Pretty is nice, emotion and connection the point. So live there. Own your category of one with fairness defined only by your own integrity. Faith that receiving what you need to do the work will be its own upward spiraling and long-lasting cycle. Or you can just try to beat the next guy. Up to you.
