Hi. Richard Petrie here, and I want to welcome you to Training No. 2. We're going to talk about Premium Positioning and the Power Pyramid. We have a new member Stefan called me up recently. We were going to catch up for a coffee in Wellington, and he reveals to me that he just completed the Wellington Marathon. Without hesitation, I asked him, "What time did you do?" Unconsciously, what I want to do is gauge his marathon running status. I had a friend who were playing golf yesterday and, of course, asked them, "What's your handicap," because, once again, unconsciously, I want to find out how they ranked on the level of golfers. It's what we intuitively do. We can't help ourselves. This is human nature to try and place people on a pecking order, on a ladder. Now, when you understand this concept, you'll be able to charge higher fees, you'll be able to position yourself as a high-status architect. But just like a pyramid, you'll notice that there's a small amount of space at the top of the pyramid. Down the bottom there's a lot. It's like architects. Lowly-rated architects, architects without statuses; a lot of them. But at the top, there's only a few. Your job is to drive yourself as high up the Power Pyramid as you possibly can. In this training, we're gonna show you how to do it. This will be different to probably any type of training that you've exposed to before on positioning. You probably haven't thought a lot about this concept of positioning and how humans like to rate people and put them on a scale so we can put a tag to them, but it's what we're always doing. Question: Are you sick of being great at what you do, but being seen by your market as just another architect? Maybe sitting at the bottom of the pyramid? Just seen as a commodity. Maybe you're getting a lot of pressure on prices? The architect sitting at the bottom of the pyramid are constantly getting pressure from prices. The architects towards the top get less and less because they're hiring those architects because of their status and their leadership positions. Without differentiation, without status, without power, you maybe pay just a little bit more or a little bit less than your peers, however, it's far from what the bleeders in your market are being paying. In fact, as you move up the scale, in any industry, not just architecture, but the pay and the fees start going exponential. In my experience of working with consultants and architects is 100% feasible you could be charging 50-100% more than you are right now, even in your current market, even if you're in a depressed market. There are always people in a marketplace who want to hire someone further up the pyramid. Always. You've got to position yourself up to that level so they want to associate with you. We need to understand the psychology of pricing and we need to understand how to position you as the go-to expert in your market. Once you've achieved this, you will start attracting different types of clients. Once positioned as the expert, you're about to charge higher fees, [inaudible 00:03:11] and clients will seek you out and deals, projects will close faster. That's how it works at the top of the pyramid. You may not get all the way to the top, and I'll explain each of the different levels in the pyramid in future videos, but your job is to get at least midway on that pyramid, if not slightly over halfway. This is a concept that PR agencies use to create celebrities as you'll see when I show you the [inaudible 00:03:39] of power. You will see that they're using it and you'll also see that you can use it for your own benefit as well. Many people have excuses when they talk about moving their status up or moving their power up. "I'm too old. I'm too young. I'm just starting out. My portfolio is not up to date. I don't have a website. It's only me. My clients are different. My town is different." None of that matters. Your ability doesn't even matter. It should, but it doesn't. We know that McDonald's doesn't make the best burgers, Pizza Hut doesn't make the pizza, and Microsoft doesn't make the best software, but they're the best market as they've position themselves [inaudible 00:04:18] and, very soon, you're gonna learn how to position yourself in a very compelling way that attracts a higher level of client. |