Value First, Numbers Second

I recently turned 50. The number to me is no big deal, but the experience I've had in celebrating it really has been. I was whisked away to Marrakech for a five-day experience I will never forget. 

The next part is what you're all expecting. We've all seen it, it's what so many do when they go somewhere new, or see something different...they relate it to their own career. 

But this is no ChatGPT-written dialogue, this is actually what went through my mind during the experience and in the few days since returning. 

We were in a rug merchant in the souks of Marrakech, it wasn't the first we'd been to, and wasn't the last, but the one thing that struck me was that nobody starts with price. 

You’re given tea, told about the cooperative, the berber weavers, the village, the symbolism in each pattern. By the time a number appears, you’re negotiating over a piece of living history, not a rug on the floor in front of you.

In B2B, this is often reversed. Some lead with day rates, deliverables and discount structures, then wonder why those in charge of the purse strings treat us like a commodity. 

One of the 'almost-non-negotiables' in my role to support my clients, and one that they will all testify to me saying over and again, is that "case studies count". 

Why? Because they do what the best rug merchants do: tell the story that make the numbers make sense. 

When you show the risks you remove, the revenue you unlock, and the headaches you prevent, you’re signalling value before price, they're buying into the whole story. And that changes the whole negotiation.