Recently I was reading about a concept called the Locksmith’s Paradox.
If you’re not familiar with the term, it goes like this: Pretend an inexperienced locksmith fixes a lock in an hour. He charges $100, and the customer is satisfied. Over time, the locksmith becomes more skilled and experienced. When the customer is in need of the same type of repair as before, the job now takes the locksmith a mere 15 minutes. He again charges $100, but this time the customer is surprised. The locksmith made the job look easy and it didn’t take long. Why should it be $100?
That is the basis of the Locksmith’s Paradox. Despite identical outcomes, actual time spent on a job can be perceived as more valuable than skill and knowledge. This could easily be called the Drain Cleaner’s Paradox. How many times have you had a customer balk a little at your price for a job that you performed fairly quickly? You know how much time and effort you put in acquiring the expertise that allows you to complete such a job so easily, but the customer is blind to that fact, focusing too much on the actual minutes it took to do the work.
I talked to a company owner the other day I may be profiling in a future issue. One thing we talked about was the fact that within the past year, due to some third-party advice, he has doubled his prices. That may seem like an extreme price hike all at once, but I think it reveals something else. That for far too long this business owner was undervaluing his services and the skills and knowledge he and his employees have cultivated to be able provide them competently and efficiently. He said it’s gone great and that he wished he had gotten serious about his pricing much sooner.
In another article I read, this was referred to as the Picasso Paradox, stemming from this legend: Famed artist Pablo Picasso was at a market one day when a woman approached him. She pulled out a piece of paper and asked if he could do a little drawing for her. Picasso obliged, handed it back to the woman, and said, “That will be $1 million.” The woman countered, “But Mr. Picasso, it only took you 30 seconds to draw this little masterpiece.” Picasso smiled and said, “It took me 30 years to draw that masterpiece in 30 seconds.”
And another example of this concept I came across that I liked: The Chinese bamboo tree spends a significant amount of its early life underground. It doesn’t break through the ground for five years. Once it does though, it can grow up to 100 feet in only five weeks. That growth appears effortless, but it’s preceded by five years of hard work underground.
The point is, whenever and however you can, convey to customers that your value resides in outcomes and your years of experience — not in how much or little time it takes you to complete a job. You deserve to be paid for your hard-earned skills, and not punished just because those skills cause you to take care of a job quickly and efficiently.
Enjoy this month’s issue.
