Pemberley No. 14
Where the argument on selling expertise moved
A quiet convergence this week: as AI makes deliverables cheap, the oldest argument in professional services, that you sell judgment rather than hours, stops being a philosophy and becomes a pricing decision. Here is where the world is pushing on your field, and where your field is about to push back.
In your niche this week
What you actually sell
The oldest argument in professional services, back in rotation as AI makes deliverables cheap.
- KalzumeusDon’t Call Yourself A Programmer makes the case that you are hired for business outcomes, not hours at a keyboard.
- aprildunford.comPositioning vs Strategy vs Vision separates the three words your services page keeps blurring together.
Saying it in public
The voices in your orbit on why visibility is part of the work.
- The Business of AuthorityIn Defense of Repetition on saying your thing again and again until the market hears it.
The bigger picture
How this week’s events and your field bear on each other.
AI-cheap deliverables are repricing advisory work
When analysis becomes a commodity, what you charge for is judgment and the trade-offs you are willing to name. Your services page should read like a position, not a menu.
Sources Harvard Business Review · Michael Porter, Harvard Business Review · April Dunford, aprildunford.com
Value-based pricing is escaping the consulting niche
The argument you have been making about hours is now landing with clients who buy software and legal work the same way. You are early to a conversation that is going mainstream; say so in your own terms.
Sources Jonathan Stark, jonathanstark.com · Blair Enns, Win Without Pitching
The old critique of consulting is the AI critique, early
Stewart’s case against scientific-management pretensions reads now as the prologue to the automation chapter. The practices that survive will be the ones that were never really selling the deliverable, an argument David C. Baker has made for years.
Sources The Atlantic · David C. Baker, The Business of Authority
Worth watching
News and essays from the wider world that bear on your work.
Beat: Business · BBC News
The platform your pipeline runs on has an owner and a roadmap; treat distribution as a client risk, not a given.
Beat: Business · BBC News
A case study in rented audiences: when the landlord changes, the terms change. The argument for the list you own.
Kevin Kelly · The Technium
The audience math behind a practice of one: a small list that trusts you beats reach.