What if the technicals are a given?

If you were to strip away all the technicals you currently enjoy that provide your competitive advantage – what’s left?

Consider the once quite profitable wedding photography market. Many moons ago if you were one of the few who owned an expensive SLR film camera and understood all its manual settings, you would have had ‘clear air’ in this market and charged handsomely. Today that is not enough – the wedding market is now in a race to the bottom.

When Google advertising started it was an extremely manual process – requiring technical wizardry to drive it. Over time Google has introduced algorithms and automation which compensates for less technically minded drivers.

Technology is now so cheap, so accessible and increasingly intelligent that most technical advantages are merely short arbitrage windows – in time the market will catch up.

What about your niche?

Assume the market has caught up and all your competitors have the same technical ability that you do.

What now separates you from your competitors?

I hope your answer is art.

ps. In a saturated market, where most wedding photographers need to shoot multiple weddings per week, my friend Jonathan Ong limits his services to 24 weddings per year. Here is Jonathan’s underlying thesis – his secret to moving from technician to artist.

No Comments

Leave a Reply