LITMIR.BIZ

The price got up to £3,900 with no signs of slowing down. Gary could tell the audience members were getting restless – so he asked the two bidders, “Will you both pay £4,000 each and I will provide a consultation for both of you?”

      They agreed, and the hammer went down. Gary had raised £8,000 by auctioning off two hours of his time.

      I'm not sure how high it would have gone but I do know that it only takes two people to push up the price at an auction. Most of the people in the room didn't bid at all and very few people bid beyond £1,500. But that doesn't matter. When the supply is “one” and there are “two” who want it, then that price keeps going up. Two people who desire something is enough to oversubscribe the one person who has it. The price keeps going up until one entity gives in.

      Too many business owners focus on the entire marketplace. They are deeply concerned by what the majority will pay rather than finding the small group of people who really value what they offer. But if you focus on the wider market price, you'll always be average. In today's competitive marketplace being average means you're unlikely to be profitable.

      If Gary Vaynerchuk wanted to try and sell everyone in the audience an hour of his time, he would have probably needed to lower his prices to £250 per hour. And after delivering months of back‐to‐back consultations he would have zero energy to write more books or give more talks.

As it turns out, Gary knew that his real value wasn't even the consultation time. It was his ability to make a high‐level introduction that would be taken seriously because it came from him.

      Your value is much higher than you think to a small number of people. You probably have specialty skills, networks, resources and insights that certain people are eager to access. You don't need everyone on the planet to see you as highly valuable; you only need enough people who can drive your price up. Separating from the economy and from your industry requires that you turn your attention to those people who find you highly valuable – and then serve them better than anyone else can.

      If two people want your time and only one can get it, your price rises until one of them gives in. Your job isn't to please everyone. Your job is to find those people who can't live without you. So … who are those people? What is it they want? And where do you find them? These questions matter more than the questions that relate to the overall market.

      Your price isn't fixed or set by the overall market. It's a result of being oversubscribed or not.

      Let's begin with some basics that I was taught by one of the world's top market traders.

SOME PEOPLE MISS OUT

      “Why do markets go up?”

I was sitting in the home office of one of Australia's most successful stock market traders – a man who had traded billions of dollars and who'd been consistently trading markets for 20+ years. He was a man for whom people travelled internationally to hear him speak about markets for an hour or two. He was sharing with me core ideas that formed the basis of his trading strategy.

      I was 22 years old at the time, and I answered his question with my best guess: “Positive news, a good economy, monetary policy, a good CEO; probably they all have an impact, I think.”

      “Nice try – but no,” he said with a smile, “Markets go up because there are more buyers than sellers – and that's it!”