As business owners, we sometimes forget how many years of school, real-life experience or both are involved in being able to share our talent in only a few short minutes. The following old story makes a great point:
A young woman was strolling along the street in Paris when she recognized Pablo Picasso sitting and having a coffee at a café. She stopped and asked if he was really Picasso and he confirmed he was.
She boldly asked him if he wouldn’t mind doing a quick pencil sketch of her. He obliged and in a couple of minutes completed the sketch.
She was delighted and kindly offered to pay him for the item.
“Thank you, that will be $10,000 francs.” said Picasso.
The woman was dumbfounded. “But that only took you a couple of minutes?” she exclaimed.
Picasso correctly replied, “Actually, that took me my whole life! ”
How could this example apply to your business?
- A real estate appraiser with 30 years of experience is asked to give a value estimate over a coffee
- An experienced tent rental professional is asked how to layout an event site before being awarded the job
There are many times when it only takes a few minutes to provide huge value to a potential customer and we often forget how long it actually took us to obtain that knowledge.
How do we unlock the value? First, we need to understand how much value we can provide to a potential customer in only a couple of minutes. Secondly, we need to share the story of Picasso with them.
While we may not always be offered to be paid for our talents, our potential customers who now understand and appreciate the value, are far more likely to do business with us.
