Reading Branson’s latest, Screw Business As Usual, I learned a fascinating truth – the average 10lb laptop requires a staggering 40,000 lbs of raw material to produce.
While the environmental issues here are certainly worth addressing, I’ll leave that discussion to greater minds.
What I want to focus on here is the typically-forgotten work of pulling together the raw materials to build something in the first place. If we think about building a laptop, we might think of the transistors, the casing, the screen and the peripheral ports. But, of course, each of those components has their own list of sub-components, as does each sub-component have it’s own sub-sub-components, and so on.
I mention this, because I was recently asked for a free subscription to Actionable Workshops. When I gently refused, offering a discount instead, the response came quick, “Why not? It’s a digital subscription! It’s not like it costs you anything.” Which, if you look at it simply from the “laptop” perspective, is accurate. But what about the components? The sub-components and the sub-sub-components?
Pablo Picasso understood this concept. (You may have read this before)
The story goes that Picasso was sitting in a Paris café when an admirer approached and asked if he would do a quick sketch on a paper napkin. Picasso politely agreed, swiftly executed the work, and handed back the napkin — but not before asking for a rather significant amount of money. The admirer was shocked: “How can you ask for so much? It took you a minute to draw this!” “No”, Picasso replied, “It took me 40 years”
Never under value yourself or your services simply because you have a clean looking offering. There’s value in simplicity. Value it. (As a supplier and as a consumer)
