There’s a lot of talk about niching down, positioning, specialization, etc in the coaching, consultant, and info-marketer space, and it’s for good reason: it really does matter to your success how you show up. 

And if you’re a service provider, you have three fundamental options: 

• The Commodity Service Provider
• The Expert Brand
• Negative Goldilocks Zone 

But first – the Price-Commodity Scale™ Principle

The Price-Commodity Scale™ is a principle I created years ago to help Experts understand the inverse relationship between pricing and Expert positioning (which is a combination of the 12 Messaging Factors™ + Authority/Commodity Factors).

Now:

• Imagine a scale - or maybe a teeter-totter.
• Imagine your Pricing is on one side.
• Imagine your Perception as a Commodity Service Provider  is on the other.

If your perception of being a commodity goes DOWN (meaning you have more Authority Factors™ than Commodity Factors™ in your marketing)... then you can charge more. (The other side goes up.)

If your PRICE goes down.... then your perception as a Commodity goes up. (This is good if you actually want to sell commodity services.)

But if you kindle of middle it -- where your 12 Messaging Factors™ aren't in alignment - then you end up in what I call the "Negative Goldilocks Zone™ of Pricing and Positioning."

The Commodity Service Provider

The Commodity Service Provider is where most people start their Expert Brand Journey. It’s a place where you are already offering a service of some kind, but you lack very few Authority Factors™ and are often working as a generalist. 

The only clients you can close tend to be at the low end of the pricing scale. Your perception as a generic, commodity service provider is high. 

There is no reason you can’t stay here, for what it’s worth, but business here tends to be low profit, high effort, and low stability.

The Expert Brand

Once you begin to add in some Authority Factors™ – such as “niching down and creating an Offer – then you start your journey as an Expert Brand. Taking this step is deliberate and it’s one many people resist. 

On this road, there are three phases and friend, you don’t have to go all the way to the end. You get to choose the level of Expert Brand you create based on your Expert Type, your revenue goals, your Vision, and so forth: 

• Expert Consultantcy
• Expert Business
• Expert Enterprise

Negative Goldilocks Zone™ (of Pricing & Positioning)

Finally, the third kind of positioning is where you kind of half-ass things and end up in this weird middle space where your 12 Messaging Factors™ aren't in alignment, where your price is kind of middle and your positioning is kind of middle. 

When this happens, you end up in what I call the "Negative Goldilocks Zone of Pricing and Positioning™.”

In this Negative Goldilocks Zone of Pricing and Positioning™, you neither close clients at the low end NOR the end of (of $) because your Authority Factors™ and your Pricing are too middle for people to categorize you.

You might quote your pricing and people think - "why are you charging so low? There's gotta be a catch."

... AND THEN THEY HIRE SOMEONE FOR MORE MONEY (an Expert, which is the opposite of a Commodity) who has the level of experience you have... but doesn't trigger their "too good to be true" alarm.

And of course, your pricing will still be too high for the price shoppers, so you don't win there either.

Leaving you with NO CLIENTS despite actually being good at what you do.

Want to get out of the Negative Goldilocks Zone™ and onto the Expert Brand Journey? Want to refine your positioning across your marketing? DM me and let’s talk, or go to my website to learn more.