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Rod Aparicio

Perspectives.

Published about 1 year ago • 1 min read

Now, it’s been 10 days since my last email after 2 years of non-stop dailies. Was on a trip in India with a client and it brought some perspective (besides the jetlag that really messed up my rhythm 🙃).

It brought perspective about the level of impact. The scale of impact.

Here’s a shift in my practice. From a perspective of one, to a perspective of one who leads.

A small firm. A small business.

If you’re running one of these you’re at a disadvantage. Or are you??

I’d argue that running a small biz gives you a few advantages:

  • You can break the traditional pricing model(s) in your industry.
  • You have more flexibility.
  • You can take certain calculated risks bigger players can’t/won’t.
  • You can choose a specific focus.
  • You can make changes at a higher speed.
  • You can re-structure things in your own ways.
  • You can be pickier with who you serve.
  • You can develop deeper expertise.
  • You can ditch hourly.
  • You can reposition leaner.
  • You can focus on transformations (meaningful ones).
  • You can shift your sales culture.
  • You can scale up your ops.
  • You can increase your margins dramatically.
  • You can make a larger impact.

Yet, it won’t be easy.

You’ll have trade-offs.

And you’ll need to decide the way.

Rod Aparicio

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Read more from Rod Aparicio

Reach is not what will deliver you change. Just because you’re in contact with more people, it doesn't mean your results will shift and/or improve. Hope is not a tactic. You have to be selective and make the hard choices, so that you can focus. Once focused, getting in front of the right people gets simpler (and easier). Instead of the big fish in the big pond, you get to be the big fish in the small pond.

about 22 hours ago • 1 min read

Set your costs, then your price. Build a brand, then your customers. Set the metric, then the result. We have it backwards. Pricing: find the value, then set a price, then figure out what makes sense for you to charge for that price. Brand: design your customers, they’ll build your brand. And you’ll find the red thread on all of those brands, to make a cohesive one. Metrics: figure out what you want as the outcome. Then think of the result, then the measurement. The metric is the measurement...

2 days ago • 1 min read

Markup and cost-plus are not the only ways Pricing doesn’t get to be built up from the ground up. (And it's not math either). It’s not about how much something costs you and how much more you want to make. It doesn’t have to do anything with how much you know, how much time you spent learning your craft, how much effort you put into, or how much you think you deserve. It has to do with how much of the value (what’s important to your customers) they find reasonable for them to pay —and be...

4 days ago • 1 min read