Apply Skill to High-Variance Buyers
Same expertise plus a higher-variance buyer pool equals two orders of magnitude in fees.
Most expert operators eventually realise their skill is portable. The question they don't ask is: which buyer pool, when I bring my skill, has the highest variance of outcome — meaning the difference between a 'good' and 'great' execution of my work is worth the most money?
Pal's example: social-media expertise applied to a fashion company helps it sell more dresses; the upside is a few percent on a bounded revenue line. The same expertise applied to a pre-IPO company changes the public market cap from $1bn to $3bn — a $2bn swing on the same skill. The buyer is price-insensitive at the top end (in fact, more expensive feels safer), so seven-figure fees become possible.
The framework forces you to map your skill not to the buyers who need it most, but to the buyers for whom your skill makes the biggest dollar difference. That gap is where outsized compensation lives.
- Variance of outcome × your contribution = your maximum fee.
- Low-variance buyers price by hours; high-variance buyers price by upside.
- Price-insensitive markets are not just willing to pay more — they're suspicious of cheap.
- Match the rarity of your skill to the price-sensitivity of the buyer; the gap is your margin.
- Defining a small, well-known buyer pool is more valuable than reaching a large unknown one.
- Map your skill to its current buyer poolWrite down who pays you today and what dollar outcome your work changes for them. Be honest about the variance — if your best week looks much like your worst, you're in a low-variance pool.
- Find adjacent buyer pools where your skill swings the outcome moreBrainstorm at least three buyer types where the same skill, executed well, materially changes a much larger number — pre-IPO companies, M&A acquirers, ultra-high-end consumer brands, regulated industries entering new markets.Pro tipRead industry deal news to find sectors where small executions (a press release, a positioning shift) move 9-figure outcomes.
- Verify those buyers are price-insensitive at the top endTalk to two or three buyers in the new pool. Ask what they currently pay for the closest equivalent. If pricing is bunched, you're still in a commodity market. If quotes vary wildly, you've found a high-variance pool.WarningBuyers who quibble about retainer levels are signalling a low-variance market — move on.
- Productise around the high-variance outcome, not the activityReframe your offer in the language of the new buyer's outcome — market cap uplift, deal close, exit multiple — not your activity (posts, decks, hours). Charge against the outcome.
- Replace low-variance clients deliberatelyAs the new pool fills, sunset clients in the lower-variance pool. The hardest part is letting go of revenue you can already see for revenue you can plausibly land.WarningDon't run both pools forever — the low-variance buyers anchor your rate card and slow conversion in the new pool.
Same playbook, two different buyer pools. Fashion clients valued the work in the range of a normal agency engagement. Pre-IPO clients, where strong narrative could shift market cap by billions, paid seven figures for the same craft.
Pal cites that a company listed in London might be valued at $1m where the same company on the US public market is valued at $4m. The difference isn't in the company — it's in the buyer pool the asset is matched to.
Pal contrasts mid-market house flippers competing on price with billionaire-buyer apartment flippers ($10m → $50m). The latter operate in a buyer pool that is small, defined, and price-insensitive — same skill domain, totally different return.
Pal lived this twice — first as a young investment banker pricing financial advice, later as a media operator. He noticed that the same company put on the London stock market trades at one valuation and on the US market at four times that, and generalised the insight: it's not the work, it's where the work lands.