✊ Decommoditize yourself
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Hi friends, Here’s a quick bit of trivia to pull out at your next dinner party. The word salary is rooted in the Latin word “sal” for salt. Why? Because in the days of the Roman Empire, salt was so valuable that Roman soldiers were paid a portion of their wages in salt, as a perk. Nowadays, of course, we’d be incredulous if a client offered to pay us in salt. Because far from being rare and valuable, today, salt is a commodity. While we might still value (and perhaps even need) salt in our lives… we can pretty much get the same quality salt at any supermarket or corner store... all for next to nothing. It’s not worth driving across town—let alone joining the army and marching off to war—for. This cycle of valuable resource degrading into commodity has played out countless times throughout history, from salt, sugar, and spices to phone lines, computing power, and internet connectivity. As consumers, we all benefit from the low costs of these useful—if not essential—commodities. But as a producer—of products, services, and content—selling a commodity is about the worst place you can be. Which means that when it comes to marketing, offer development, and sales, one of your biggest goals is to decommoditize yourself in the eyes of your audience and your market. We’ll talk more about what that means in a second. But first, let’s break down a few of the traits that define commodities—from copper to content, salt to services—which include the following:
It’s worth noting that it doesn’t matter whether your offers and content literally match these criteria or not. If a casual browser, follower, or outside observer deems your work to meet most of the criteria, your fate has been sealed, and you’ve been locked into a race to the bottom, where all you can compete on is price and efficiency... Which is precisely why—if your goal is to build margin (time, profit, creative) into your business, one of the central goals of your content (including your podcast) is decommoditization. Said another way, for emphasis. The point of your content is not to grow an audience. The point of your content is to capture the attention of a slice of your market and show them why you are the best option for them in that market… and worth paying a premium for. Referring back to our list of commodity criteria, this means your content should demonstrate clearly how what you do is:
Hmmm. As you can probably tell, this isn’t how most shows (and content more broadly) are structured. There are a few reasons why: For one, this goal requires an in-depth understanding of the alternatives (other podcasts, content, service providers, coaches, consultants, courses, etc) the market is already engaging with. Then it requires the host to have a clear understanding of how and why their stuff is different and/or better than those competitors. Then, it requires them to be able to present that argument in a cogent, compelling way. Finally, it requires them to design their content strategies around the consistent production of content that communicates this argument. In practice, this means building their show concept around that argument, designing their Episode Engineering around that argument, and basing their topic and guest selection around that argument. Most shows (and most businesses) check precisely zero of these boxes. Which, of course, explains perfectly why most businesses get only little to no return on their content marketing efforts. This is why, for every new client, the first thing we do is spend several weeks excavating, exploring, and then piecing together their core brand argument in painstaking detail. Because this argument is the key that unlocks their ability to name their price, pick their customers, and develop a higher margin business. One new client, Alice, joined PMA in November with a $4k offer. After a couple months poring over her core argument and then re-packaging her offer around it, last week, she sold the first of her new $30k offers. All for a market that she (and everyone else) thinks of as "cheap". Hmmm. It's worth noting that to this point, Alice hasn't restructured her show or content strategy around this argument. That's coming down the pike, and will no doubt increase her sales momentum considerably. As a test though, she did publish one single episode designed around one of the three core sub-components of her brand argument. The results? 5 new sales inquiries as soon as she published the episode. Clearly, Alice is onto something. And it all started by getting clear on precisely how she is different and better than the other options available to her people... And then putting that difference on display. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about some of the knobs, levers, and dials at our disposal to detach ourselves, our offers, and our shows from being viewed as commodities. But in the meantime, remember this: If you want to escape the race to the bottom and opt out of the comparison game… If you want people to line up to work with you and be willing to pay a premium to do so… It’s your job to show them why it’s in their best interests to do so. Not on your sales page or a sales call. But each and every time they engage with you. Assume they know everything about every one of your competitors. And then make it clear why you’re the only one worth considering.
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