There are fewer replacements and thus price premium opportunities when I’m doing something that few other people do. The confidence I get from marketplace acceptance urges me forward to be even more helpful to them. When I do it well, I can travel just to take pictures like I did last weekend and not worry about the expense, freeing my mind up to

Noticing the patterns gives me the insight to guide people.

If you’re open to the exercise of pattern matching, always start with yourself. Where have you consistently failed or thrived? What inputs led to better decisions?

But as much as you are learning, you’re taking two steps back for every three steps forward because much of what you learn with each new engagement is just the bare necessity in order to even be relevant.

There are literally hundreds of demographic or behavioral commonalities that might unite your prospects. If that common trait is significant, someone will have a list.

The most powerful positioning combines both these ways of thinking in something like the crosshairs in a reticle on a rifle sight, although you always lead with a horizontal or a vertical focus and the second element complements the first.

Regardless of how much implementation you still do, though, make a distinction between it and strategy to help prospects and clients compartmentalize your firm appropriately.

When you really need an expert, they tell you how it’s going to be at every step of the way and you’re along for the ride, whether it’s an attorney with high stakes litigation or a surgeon saving your life. You have all the permission power but they have all the process power.

“An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage,”