Ditching Hourly

Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. Today I'm going to talk about the helicopter option. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for me to be faced with a particular problem, which is how should I get home from Boston? I travel a lot and when I fly, I usually leave out of my local airport, which is Providence. But air travel being what it is, every once in a while I end up returning to the Boston airport, which is about 50 miles north of my house. When this happens, I have to figure out how to get home and the range of options is actually pretty large. I could walk, which would be free. I could take a taxi, which is about 250 bucks. I've done that on a number of occasions. I could take a limo or car service, that kind of thing, also about $250. I could take a bus. There is a Bonanza bus terminal sort of close to the airport. I could take the commuter rail, which is a very inexpensive option. It's about 12 bucks. I could take an express train, which has fewer stops but is more expensive, is about 65, 70 bucks. Or I could take a helicopter, which is $2,500. So if you look at that list of options, why wouldn't I just walk? It's the cheapest option, right? Of all these options, why wouldn't I pick the cheapest one? Because it would be terrible, obviously. Just the idea of walking to my house from Boston is comically scary with like a roller bag behind me. So the thing is, each of these options provides a completely different customer experience. They get different pros and cons, and the prices range from zero to $2,500. Some of these approaches are luxurious. Some are utilitarian. Some I would have to share with other passengers. Others would be private. Some seem safe. Others seem less safe. Some are available any time of day around the clock. Some are not. Some are available on demand. Some are not. Some need to be scheduled way in advance. Some can be done right at the last minute. Some take hours or even a day if I was walking. Some take a few minutes. Some have a predictable duration, whether it's long or short, and some don't. Some offer door-to-door service, and some don't. So my final choice in any given situation is going to depend on the weather. Is it pouring rain or is it sunny? How much of a rush I'm in. Do I need to get home for a particular thing immediately? You know, maybe my wife's got to go out, so I need to get home as soon as I get there as soon as possible to go out, or is nobody home and it doesn't really matter when I get there. I might make a different decision based on whether or not I have to make a stop on the way home. Do I have to pick something up? Do I have to drop something off? Or my general mood. I might feel like I'm in a chatty mood, so maybe going in a cab where the driver might talk to me the whole way might be fine. If I'm in a cranky kind of mood, I'm going to want to avoid that sort of thing. So what I'm getting at here is this. The price is just one of many factors that a buyer is going to consider when making a purchasing decision. With all else being equal, a buyer is going to choose the option that's the cheapest, of course, but all else is never equal. So if you do software development, this is a high-touch, service-oriented profession. It's not like you're selling sneakers to the mass market. It's a collaborative engagement between you and your customers over a fairly long period of time usually. So there are dozens of factors that can come into play in a given professional relationship. The experience, the speed, the quality, the attitude, your personality, your communication style, the worldview, and believe it or not, sometimes even race, religion, politics, and a little bit more highly charged issues. Expose your clients to what makes you unique. This could be expertise in a particular skill, or it could be a background with a particular audience, or it could be your mission in life. Whatever it is, let them know about it and you'll start to attract ideal buyers who aren't making a buying decision solely on price. That's it for today. I'm Jonathan Stark, and this is Ditching Hourly. Thanks for listening. The next time somebody asks you for your hourly rate, tell them, I don't have one. To learn what to say next, go to valuepricingbootcamp.com to sign up for my free email course. That website again is valuepricingbootcamp.com. Hey, Jonathan again. Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like value pricing your work instead of billing for your time, or positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space, or maybe productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours

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