No so long ago I waxed lyrical about the importance of pricing your services at what you’re worth. I used as an example an orthopedic surgeon I had needed a couple of years ago to fix a rotator cuff tear that resulted from a skiing accident.
I said how his fee was not an issue and when you need the help of a professional you look for the best in town not the cheapest. I also said:
The surgeon was Dr. Kyle Swanson and he’s at Lake Tahoe Orthopedics & Sports Medicine — I mention that to make another big point: when you get great work done (irrespective of cost) by a skilled professional you are very happy to refer him/her. I have referred Kyle dozens of times to my ski buddies because we bust and tear body parts quite regularly – birds of a feather flock together which is exactly what relationship marketing recognizes. But referrals rarely happen in relation to low level work (because there are so many obvious solutions) and when they do all you get is lower level, low price work. I raise this point in the context of your post because when you focus on, and engage in, value creation you get talked about and you get referrals to value-seeking clients.
This is where the law of attraction seems to have come into the play because on Christmas Eve, just a couple of weeks after my original post I experienced another incident.
The result is nicely summarized by the following extract from Kyle’s Operative Report which is shown below.
POSTOPERATIVE DIAGNOSES
- Right knee anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear
- Right knee medial collateral ligament tear (MCL) tear
- Right knee posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) avulsion
PROCEDURES
- Right knee anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction using bone-tendon-bone autograft
- Repair right medial collateral ligament (MCL) avulsion off the medial femoral condyle
And there you have it!
Lesson learned …… don’t invoke the law of attraction with the possibility of negative outcomes.