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Rod Aparicio

Perspectives.

Published 11 months 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

Who told you it's greedy / needy / bad to have high prices? Who told you it's good to give discounts? Who told you that giving a discount is a show of appreciation? Who told you that a discount is "making the customer feel good"? Who told you that your offering is "too expensive"? Who told you you need to do what your competitors are doing? Who told you revenue is the thing to focus on? Who told you pricing is covering your costs and adding a margin? Who told you things are this way because...

about 19 hours ago • 1 min read

A common belief is that over delivering delights your customers. That's a misconception. You can delight them with delivering on your promise. Over delivering entails expanding your costs without a defined scope. You train your customer to expect more than what they pay for. You train your customer that if you raise your prices, you'll expand the scope. You underprice your offering. Delighting your customers has nothing to do with over delivering. It has to do with setting expectations and...

2 days ago • 1 min read

It's pretty clear on a lot of replies to yesterday's email that under delivering is not the best option of them 3 (under delivering, delivering, over delivering). That's great. And even with that, you'd be surprised at how often a large portion of players in the market do under deliver. The bar is SO low that by doing a decent bare minimum, you kinda get away with it. If it's that obvious to you, what do you think make other businesses not deliver on their promise?

3 days ago • 1 min read