Although more than a week has gone by, I can’t stop thinking about it.
The World Series.
The funny thing is, although I would call myself a sports fan, I would never consider myself a baseball fan. Maybe at one point in my life, but certainly not today.
But the series that just finished was probably one of the most exciting sports experiences I have ever had. And I will always remember it.
It was amazing the amount of talent on that field — especially the pitchers.
Have you ever stopped to think about how much money those pitchers make? You don’t have to be a sports fan to be amazed by this.
Here’s a quick breakdown of three of them:
Jake Arietta
$10.7 Million
Jon Lester
$20 Million
John Lackey
$16 Million
And that is just their salaries for 2016!!
This amount of money for knowing how to do one thing REALLY well – throw a baseball.
But it’s not just that. It’s more specific.
- Jake Arietta throws 5 different types of pitches. Because of that, he is hard to hit. Last year he won the Cy Young Award (best pitcher).
- Jon Lester has an advantage the other two don’t: He throws left-handed. Only about 40% of the Major League pitchers throw left-handed.
- John Lackey is known for his four-seam fastball and slider combination. Extremely hard for batters to hit consistently.
But none of them are as specific as Aroldis Chapman.
In a season of baseball, if you make it to the World Series, you will play more than 1,500 innings of baseball. In 2016, Chapman played in only 58 innings because he is a closer. That means he only pitches at the end of the game. As a left-handed pitcher known for a fastball that can reach over 100 MPH, he averaged just 16.8 pitches per inning.
In 2016, Aroldis Chapman made $11.32 Million. That’s roughly $11,600 per pitch.
Now THAT’s the power of being SPECIFIC!
Now, you may say “That’s baseball. What does that have to do with my business?”
Fair question, but I will tell you, it applies no differently. And you don’t have to specialize as a heart surgeon or lab scientist to be effective at it.
You just have to understand with your profession and based on your passion, what you could be known for being the best at.
For instance, here are some real practical examples:
- I’m friends with a photographer that has taken a photograph of 3 plates of food for $15,000.
- I know a consultant that has created a 54 page PDF and been paid $6,000 for it.
- I’ve been to a business talk for a friend who spoke for 25 minutes and was paid $2,500
That’s what being known as the best in what you do can achieve for you!
Still not convinced? I didn’t think so.
The reason I know is that one of the most frequent challenges I have is to help people see that they can simplify their business and grow exponentially just by being specific.
When I suggest this to people they say, “Matt, I can’t do that. I can’t just talk about that one service. If I did, when people need these others services, they won’t think of me.”
Do you feel this way too? Does the idea of only marketing ONE service make your palms sweat?
The key to seeing what I am talking about is to look at what services you do and find the one you like the best and is most profitable. Now think about the amount of time you spend doing that. If you are like most businesses, you will see you spend very little time on that and too much on everything else.
So what would happen to your business if you could reverse it? That is, spend the majority amount of time on the one thing that you love and makes you the most money.
Most companies I work with say they would make as much as 4 times the money AND be happier.
So what’s holding you back? Take 90 days and focus your marketing on that one thing. If it doesn’t work and I’m wrong, you can always go back to the old way.
But I would be shocked if you didn’t hit a “home run” with this new approach.
Big Ideas:
- Spend some time thinking about what you can and want to be known as being the BEST at. Consider the profit you make and what you love to do.
- Ask yourself how much time you actually get to spend doing that and how much time you spend on everything else.
- Calculate how much more revenue (and less headaches) you would have if you just became more specific with the services you did.
- Remember that the more specific you are, the better the chance you have at being the best at something — and therefore the more money you can make at it.
Would you like to talk more about this topic? I’d love to hear from you. Just shoot me an email at matt (at) memomarketinggroup.com
