The price of intellect (or the lack of it)

No matter which business industry you are in, one of your main concerns is having a competitor that undercharge your rates - worse when the same competitor churns out much inferior quality work which goes unnoticed.

As a consumer, price proposition is definitely an influential factor in any purchase making process. However, as a business owner and one that is in the creative industry, it is difficult for me to put a tangible price on a product just because it is considered “market rate”. Of course factors like rent, man-hours and utilities are among the contributing factors to our pricing policy. But how do you measure the quality of creative work in terms of dollars and cents?

For instance, two creative individuals may have spent the same amount of man-hours to complete a design draft.

However, the quality of the work produced by each of them may differ. How do you then put a price on the final product when they have both spent the same amount of man-hours to complete it and where every other variables are the same except their creative inputs? Though there is no set formula to it, I prefer to leave it to our senses to decide: if it excites, is impactful and conveys the message or theme well, that, to me, is the better quality creative work, and hence should have a higher value.

Another intangible asset to any company is brand equity which is closely related to reputation. Your reputation is your brand and you can only charge as high as your perceived brand value. Which comes first though? Is your reputation built by your brand or vice versa? Let’s start from the beginning: the product.

A great product will create a strong brand and that in turn will create your reputation. Waver on the quality of your product, and slowly but surely, everything else will tumble like a house of cards. We have to move away from a “price proposition” economy to that of a “value proposition” one. Unfortunately, we still have some ways to go. To date, I have clients telling me that our competitors charge lower than us without comparing apples to apples by comparing the quality of our work.

What about perceived value; distorted or otherwise? Many luxury goods companies spend millions to create a strong perceived value of their products and brand. Let’s use the “luxury bag” analogy: “A person may need a bag but what he desires is usually a high-end luxury bag instead a run-of–the- mill bag.

Whilst they both have the same functions, what sets one apart from the other is not just the price but also the preconceived notion of quality, durability and social stature.”

Superficially, I feel that the above analogy reveals a lot of truth. But on hindsight and further reflection, it does question our value system and our ability to assess and value a product objectively.

I do not have the solution for mankind to remove its blinkers and to practise more equitable value propositioning because it is mostly a matter of individual choice and tastes. Also, I won’t pretend to have a flawless system of judging quality. I am sure everyone would have an augmented approach on how you would define the worth of one’s creative work or product.

We either feel disappointed should our valuation do not concur to that of our clients but we have to stand firm and have faith that the end product is worth every blood, sweat and tears that was put into it, no matter how little of a bargaining chip we have. After all, who better to value what work is worth than its maker? At the end of the day though, the creative business is all about matching the work to an appreciative audience and that is an everyday uphill challenge.

Not everyone can be a Banksy. We may be inspired by him but here, I would be arrested for claiming all roads to be my grandfather’s.