NBA 2K21 NEXT-GEN - THE CITY COURTSIDE REPORT
BANNER
A special hello to everyone in the 2K community! Erick Boenisch, Executive Producer at Visual Concepts, back again.
We’re roughly a week out from the release of NBA 2K21 for the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms. I can’t believe it is basically already here! As I noted in the last Courtside Report I wrote, it has been an incredibly unique year for all of us here at VC, as it has been for many of our friends in the entire video games industry. To be in this position to kick off a whole new generation of NBA 2K games, alongside the next-gen console launches, speaks to the team’s unassailable hard work and dedication to make NBA 2K21 the best experience possible. My endless thanks goes out to the entire team at Visual Concepts!
So far in these Courtside Reports, we’ve talked about next-gen gameplay and all the innovations we’re bringing to player animation, collision, AI behavior, and so much more. The graphics...we’ve all seen the graphics! We’ve also introduced all-new WNBA experiences - The W, The W Online, and MyWNBA - that bring long-awaited gameplay modes to the women’s game in NBA 2K. And now, as you’ve undoubtedly already seen from the trailer, the team here at Visual Concepts is incredibly proud to present...The City!
But first, a little bit of history.
When we made NBA 2K14 for what was then the new, next-gen gaming consoles, we introduced “The Park.” The vision was to create a competitive online basketball environment that allowed our quickly growing community of NBA 2K fans to compete against each other outside of the authentic NBA experience. This meant allowing NBA 2K players to take their custom MyPLAYERs and bring them into a whole new place where you can compete with friends and complete strangers. Just like walking onto an outdoor court to run a half-court game or waiting for 5s at your local rec center, the Park was our version of playing pick-up basketball and taking part in its unique, competitive vibe.
Over the past seven years, it has evolved and expanded with features that enriched the online experience at every stop. The Park experience quickly grew into The Neighborhood as the NBA 2K community itself flourished, and it’s been our most popular feature over the years. We’re very proud about what we were able to build in the past and are astonished every day by the competition and creativity that our fans demonstrate in our world.
With all this said, I am proud to be the very first to welcome you to…

THE CITY

PICTURE: Night
Here is The City at a quick glance: Imagine a map that is many, many times larger than previous Neighborhoods. A design that resembles a modern metropolis, complete with towering skyscrapers, sprawling plazas, and a city center. Oh, and it houses four distinct boroughs that are controlled by four rival Affiliations. And with that, I’m incredibly proud to announce that Affiliations are BACK! I’ll go into more details on Affiliations a little further below. For now, let’s keep painting the picture of what The City truly is.
The City is our most ambitious execution of a virtual basketball community...ever. The sheer amount and variety of buildings and basketball courts that we were able to create and fit into the map still amazes me to this day!
Let’s talk about the core components of The City and their functions:
PICTURE: Day

Rookieville - Sitting just off the water’s edge on the southern side of The City lies the Rookieville docks. Rookieville is exactly what it sounds like; this is where your NBA 2K21 City journey will begin. MyPLAYERs looking to dive into The City and all that it has to offer must first prove their skills amongst other rookie MyPLAYERs in this isolated cluster of basketball courts. Meet the requisite actions in Rookieville, and the gates of The City will open before you. Let’s find out what awaits you on the other side…
Boroughs - As I noted above, Affiliations make their long-awaited return in NBA 2K21. Each has a dedicated space in the North, South, East, and West sections of The City that we refer to as boroughs. Each borough has its own vibe and collection of basketball courts - decked out in the Affiliations logos and colors. Additionally, each Affiliation area houses a unique Warehouse basketball court, where new MyPLAYER progression features await. More on this below!
Event Center - The heart of The City is the brand new Event Center, shining like a bright beacon, no matter which borough you view it from. Equally bright and shiny are the many different interiors of this futuristic monolith, where the court floors and walls are lined with dynamic LED screens and lighting elements that change the tone and vibe of the setting. All new and returning Events will be held inside the Event Center, and special intra-Affiliation competitions will take place here as well.

PICTURE: Event Center (CLUB 2K, Beats)

Garage Hoops - Exploration is a major part of experiencing The City. Sprinkled around The City, you will find basketball hoops attached to the side of some buildings - if you look close enough. If you happen to see one, try pulling out your basketball and shooting some hoops with it. If another player passes by and sees you shooting, they will have the ability to step on the court and shoot with you. From there you will have the option to quickly and seamlessly launch into 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, HORSE, and many other game types. Its simplicity is its strong point. And as an added bonus, there are large VC multipliers you can earn on these courts each day for your first five games played! This is a great place to start your day off as you warm up for the main event at your affiliation’s courts.
People of The City - Continuing on with the theme of exploration, scattered throughout The City are quest/objective giving NPCs. If you’ve ever played any RPG experiences, you’ll have no problem spotting them; they will be the people with colored exclamation points above their heads. Every 4-6 weeks, new quests/objectives will be added to our People of The City, such that you will find yourself with new things to do all year long.
- Generally speaking, there are two lines of quests. The first is a series of single player 3v3 games you will be challenged with in the Warehouses found in the court area of each affiliation. Some of these can be pretty challenging as you’ll be facing off against some of the best players to ever lace up a pair of basketball shoes. The insides of the Warehouses are actually very cool. Astute players who enjoyed NBA 2K20’s Neighborhood will appreciate the throwback efforts within them! The other line of quests will encourage you to get out and play games in The City, and reward you for doing so. Simple as that. Complete all of the quests and you will earn some unique clothing items/accessories that are not sold in stores. Get out there and ball, my friends!
Gatorade Training Facility - The mecca of MyPLAYER physical training gets a makeover on multiple levels - literally. The facility has now expanded to two floors, where on the first floor, MyPLAYERs will find their usual array of training equipment that’ll help beef up their abilities. The second floor houses a great new feature in The City: Rental Courts. Want an uninterrupted run of games with your friends or other ballers you just met? Rent a court in the Gatorade Training Facility and play games however you want!

PICTURE: Gatorade Training Facility

Special Courts - There are a couple full-sized (one 4v4, the other 5v5) courts available in The City. These are non-affiliated courts that our team created to pay tribute to two things we are very passionate about. One of these courts was built to commemorate and celebrate the late Kobe Bryant. The surface is textured beautifully with Kobe’s signature snakeskin design, and his numbers 8 and 24 mark the restricted areas at the opposite ends of the court. And overlooking the grounds is a gigantic mural of an iconic Kobe moment, where he stood triumphantly on the scorer’s table as he celebrated his 5th NBA championship. I know you all are picturing the pose. What you are thinking is correct; and it is immortalized right here in NBA 2K21’s The City. This is a location where you will find me playing, as I celebrate my Laker and Kobe fandom!
Fire Ball - Holding court in The City is going to come with an air of prestige in the next-gen version of NBA 2K21. On occasion, you will see a Fire Ball being used on the courts...yes, literally A BALL THAT IS ON FIRE! When your team wins 10 games in a row on Affiliation courts, the ball used in your game will immediately catch on fire and stay lit until you lose. Expect crowds to gather around your court when this happens! You already know that everyone seeing the fire ball will be like a bat signal for the best ballers to start lining up to dethrone your reign. Challenge extended!
Pink Diamond Plaza - One of my favorite basketball court designs in the next-gen version of NBA 2K21 sits atop Pink Diamond Plaza, located right in the heart of The City. Decked out in fluorescent lights and with music orchestrated by a resident DJ, Pink Diamond Plaza hosts the entirety of the MyTEAM Triple Threat Online experience. Give it a look and prepare to be impressed!

PICTURE: TTO Pink Diamond Plaza

Apparel Stores - While some of your favorite shops from the old Neighborhoods will be returning, The City has been built to feature an even wider variety of apparel locations for you to express your style. Some of our closest brand partners will be receiving a dedicated space within our plaza of shops. All your favorites, including Nike, Jordan Brand, adidas, Under Armour, Puma, and many more can be found in the City. For me, two of my favorite new stores are Alter Ego and Drip Brothers; you can get some fun items in those two! Be on the lookout for all of the new self-expression items we will have available at launch and beyond!

PICTURE: Adidas Store
PICTURE: Puma Store
PICTURE: Converse Store
PICTURE: New Balance Store
PICTURE: Alter Ego store

AFFILIATIONS

The City is big. The return of Affiliations, however, may be just as big - if not bigger. For some years now, one of the most requested features from the NBA 2K community has been Affiliation-based gameplay. Naturally, we’re incredibly excited to bring it back in a meaningful way that offers competitive depth to the City. This is something we have wanted to do for a number of years now, and the power of the next-gen consoles finally affords us the opportunity to see our vision through.
Let’s start with the basics. There are four Affiliations in The City:

North Side Knights
South City Vipers
Beasts of the East
Western Wildcats

PICTURE: North Side Knights
PICTURE: South City Vipers
PICTURE: Beasts of the East
PICTURE: Western Wildcats
Each has their own dedicated borough and set of Affiliation courts within The City. Rep up to Pro 1 by winning a few games in Rookieville, and you’ll be assigned to one of these four rival factions. If you didn’t land in your Affiliation of choice, you can always head to City Hall of the Affiliation you are interested in joining and file a transfer request. The penalty for changing your Affiliation is your Rep level will reset all the way down to Pro 1 (what you had when you graduated from Rookieville); I would encourage you to think long and hard before abandoning your team to jump ship!
So, who will run The City? At the core of Affiliations gameplay is rivalry and competition. It’s us vs. them. Who will be the best? We’ve designed this experience to be an ever-present grapple amongst the Knights, Vipers, Beasts, and Wildcats for bragging rights within The City. Here is what’s in-play as you represent your Affiliation:

Player Rep - Playing on your own Affiliation’s courts has its advantages; specifically, you can only achieve your full Player Rep by balling on your home court. Playing on the courts of your rival Affiliations will earn you much less rep per game played. Leveling up and strengthening your MyPLAYER will be very key for what is to come...
Rival Day Conquest - The final two weeks of every Mayor term (more on this below!) will feature the culmination of a series of events to crown which Affiliation runs The City. Rival Day Conquest is a key event where all rep-earning restrictions are removed from The City and you are encouraged to invade every other borough with your teammates and take hold of the courts. Keep a close eye on the leaderboard located in each court area; at the end of Rival Day Conquest, the four Affiliations will be ranked by score and seeded for the culmination of the season, the Rival Day Championship.
Rival Day Championship - Taking place in the Event Center, this is the final piece of the puzzle in confirming your Affiliation as the true champions of The City. Battle head-to-head with teams from other Affiliations as you engage in this culminating experience. For the Affiliation that comes out on top of this head-to-head championship, the spoils of The City await you. You’ll be able to head to your Affiliations City Hall and pick up your winner’s check (enjoy the free VC!), but the real prize is your Mayor will also be able to deck out your entire borough and make your Affiliation the envy of The City.

This is now the second time I’ve mentioned the concept of the Mayors. Let’s dive in and take a closer look at what a Mayor is, and what they do for you...

MAYORS

A brand new dynamic we’re introducing as part of The City are...Mayors! Each Affiliation will be represented by a Mayor; they will be very influential in your day-to-day experience within The City. So what is a Mayor, and what do they do? And how do they become elected?
Let’s go over their responsibilities. Mayors are responsible for:

Affiliation Videos - Mayors will be creating assorted videos during their term that will appear in-game on the jumbotrons in the court areas. You can expect your Mayor to emit rallying cries and motivate the members of the Affiliation to perform at the peak of their abilities. After all, like you, they want to run The City!
Custom Playlists - Mayors can curate custom music playlists that only play within their respective borough/affiliation boundaries. This is actually a great feature in that each Affiliation court area will have its own vibe based on the musical selections of the current Mayor. As you move away from one court area, you will hear the music slowly fade away as you get further away. Simultaneously, you’ll be approaching a new court area and hear new beats starting to get louder with each step. It is the small details like this that you will find immerse you completely in the experience of The City!
Court Design - There will be events during a Mayor’s reign where if their Affiliation comes out victorious, they will have the responsibility of designing what the courts look like for their borough. Will they choose a thematic design that represents the mascot? Will they just ask for Lakers courts? They need to be thinking re-election here with every decision made!
Mural Design - Like Court Design above, there will be opportunities for Affiliations to customize the look of their court areas with highly stylized murals to really set the tone for the location when rival players come to visit!
Uniform Selection - When it comes time to formally battle the other Affiliations head-to-head, the Mayor will have the unique opportunity to select the uniform that all members will wear as they stream onto the courts of their rivals. Dressing for success will be the order here; Rival Days will be monumental periods of time during the season.

Mayors will also be interacting with their constituents via in-game polls and messaging that is all conveniently built directly into the menu system of The City.
Finally, let’s talk briefly about how Mayors come to be. For the launch of NBA 2K21, we have hand-selected the initial candidates for mayors (spoiler: they will be some of the biggest names from the NBA 2K community; you know all of them!). These four big-time community influencers will be leading the charge for our Mayor program. But these positions aren’t permanent! Every six weeks, we will be holding an election week in the game where you, the community representing your Affiliation, will have the final say on who becomes the next Mayor to represent the cause. These are going to be exciting times that can turn the tides of momentum! We have some fun ideas in store to make election weeks fun and memorable. Stay tuned!

MyPLAYER

With a map of this size, our objective was to populate it with as many ballers as possible. To make for a truly vibrant, dynamic environment, we’re supporting hundreds of MyPLAYERs simultaneously in the City. Here’s what’s new for every one of them:

Walking and Balling... at the Same Time - The basketball is an integral experience in The City in NBA 2K21 (yes, we have LOTS of different balls for you to express yourself with!). You will need to have one in your inventory to participate in the aforementioned Gatorade Court Rentals and Garage Hoops games. Easily my favorite usage of the basketball is the simple act of dribbling it around The City whenever I want. Like the brand new dancing system described above, you will be able to showcase your style with the real-time chaining together of a wealth of dribble moves. The dynamism in the system this year truly offers you the chance to create unique and custom showcases of dribbling the ball. One little tip for you: Somewhere out there in The City is a citizen who can teach you some of the best dribble moves around; you just have to find him!
Skateboard/BMX Improvements - One of my favorite improvements to the experience this year falls into the category of the simple joys I get while traversing The City. For the thrill seekers out there, you will find plenty of rails you can grind on with your skateboard this year. That’s right, express your style and grind on any rails you can find in The City! There is a very large hill over in the Beasts of the East borough that features the longest rail grind in The City. Have fun with that one! Oh, one more thing, there is a free fully kitted out skateboard waiting for you in Decks, our skateboard shop! Make sure to stop by and pick it up so you can partake in the fun!
- The BMX bike has also seen a lot of improvements to its functionality and control this year. Aside from being one of the fastest vehicles in the city, it now allows you to perform a variety of tricks to show off your style. Land the 360 and you’ll get everyone’s attention. I should probably note, the skateboard also has its own set of tricks you can perform, in addition to the newly added grinding abilities!
- One of our new vehicles, the Chopper, is a great way to flaunt your style. It’s not the fastest bike, but it’s not supposed to be. This one is all about looks and catching the attention of everyone around you. I’m a fan of all the different looks available here; more on the way too. This game will never stop growing and evolving!

PICTURE: Wheels store (bikes)
PICTURE: Decks store (skateboards)

Cosmetics - Creating a specific look for your MyPLAYER has been one-half of an important equation in making your MyPLAYER really yours. In the next-gen version of NBA 2K21, we’re opening up new customization elements to help you look just right.
Hair - This one is definitely a big ask from you, our community! We’re offering a number of new hairstyles this year that will keep you up-to-date with the latest looks!
Accessories - Rep your Affiliation with the latest accessories. Make sure and hit up ‘Embellish’, one of our many new stores in The City this year, where you can pick up some chain necklaces to truly show off your style!

PICTURE: Embellish store (fashion)

Apparel - We’ve got some surprise items in store, including new types of hats (spoiler: I’ve seen the upcoming ‘wacky hats’ and they are my all-time favorites!), clothing, footwear, and more. For launch, head to your Affiliation store and mask up with a custom face mask that only people within your Affiliation can sport! It’s important to stay safe out there. And as always, we’ll continue bringing out new gear to freshen up your look all year long!

PICTURE: Affiliation store (Vipers)

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Here at Visual Concepts, we see the dawn of a new generation as a chance to plant our flag and showcase to the world the kind of experiences we are capable of delivering to our dedicated fanbase. Born through a vision we started many years ago, NBA 2K21’s The City represents exactly that sentiment. The freedom afforded to us by the open-ended nature of The City is one we plan to grow with and into over the coming years.
2020 has been a challenging year for all of us in mankind. A global pandemic and devastating wildfires (in our neck of the woods) would have been cause for many to throw in the towel. To both my amazement and expectation, the development team here at VC buckled down, adjusted to their new norm, and delivered an experience that only we could deliver. I couldn’t be more proud of the team here, and more excited for our fans all around the world!
From our homes to yours, this one is for all of you! We’ll see you out there in The City!
Erick Boenisch

Hey all,
You may have seen me around. I’ve been posting here for the last few years as I’ve built a content marketing agency called Optimist. Over the last few years, we’ve grown it from $0 to over $1.5MM ARR.
Today, I wanted to share something a bit different. A topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately.
I don’t really have anything to promote. But feel free to follow me on Twitter if you’re interested in what I have to say about entrepreneurship, growth, marketing, and random pop culture hot takes.
---
Asking for money is hard.
That’s why one of the most difficult parts of being an entrepreneur is the element of pricing.
Whether you sell widgets or work as a consultant, you’ve spent countless hours learning, honing your craft, building your product. You’ve invested blood, sweat, and tears into making something that you think other people would be willing to pay you for.
So, when it comes time to put a dollar figure on that effort, it’s no surprise that it can be a scary process.
In a way, you’re not just setting a price tag for what you built.
You’re putting a price on yourself.
What if no one else thinks I’m worth this much?
What if they laugh at me?
It’s these moments where the imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and fear start to take hold.
And because of that, our natural inclination is to dial back our pricing. Lower the bar — lower the risk. Undercut your competitors and avoid having a difficult conversation about why you’re worth more than someone else.
Maybe if I just charge $10 instead of $100, no one will question it.
But, competing on price is a losing strategy.
Instead, consider what that fear means.
The reality is that if you’re worried about the price you’re charging, it likely means:

You’re selling something of little value (commodity)
You haven’t defined the true value of what you sell
You haven’t communicated that value to your customers

Each of these problems leads to the same outcome — a race to the bottom.
Over the last 4 years, starting as a freelancer and now running a content marketing agency, I’ve learned to fight off that imposter syndrome.
I’ve learned to re-frame my value.
I’ve learned to communicate it clearly.
And, it’s worked.
Clients hire us every month to create content for them. And on its face, our pricing may seem astronomical. But I never flinch when I share the cost of what we do. Because I focus on how to communicate the value in a way that makes sense.

Selling 4 Blog Posts for $7,500 per month

How much is a blog post worth?
I run a content marketing agency. So, you might think that this question crosses my mind a lot.
You might assume that the price of our services is related to the cost to create and publish content — because isn’t that how pricing works?
And you might also assume that we have to price our services to be competitive with all of the freelancers, agencies, and offshore operations that sell content for pennies per word.
Maybe you’d do some back-of-the-napkin math and come up with a number.
Say you’re even generous — you might come up with something like $1,000 per blog post.
So, what if I offered to sell you one blog post for $10,000?
You’d probably balk.
Hell, you might even laugh in my face. (That’s our worst fear when it comes to pricing, isn’t it?)
How could a single post be worth that kind of money?
It can’t take more than 20 hours to create, publish, and promote a blog post. And if you threw a rock, you’d probably hit 3 people who would be happy to write one for $50.
In other words, if Optimist competed on the basis of price — we’d be fucked.
Now, imagine that instead of offering you a blog post for $10,000, I offered to grow your business by 10% for the same price. You might spring at the idea.
Depending on the size of your company, that investment could easily pay for itself — and then some.
Would you care if that outcome only required me to create a single blog post?
Probably not. Because, at the end of the day, you’re no longer paying me to deliver a blog post. You’re paying me to deliver a result — and that has changed the calculus for how you determine its value.
This is how Optimist operates.
The value of our work is not measured by the time spent on production. It’s not even measured by the deliverables that we’re able to produce.
The value of our work is measured by the outcome that we generate.
In other words, our customers are not buying blog posts.
We sell growth.
What that means is that we don’t compete on price per blog post. We aren’t locked into a race to produce content cheaper than freelancers or offshore teams.
Instead, we focus on how we can turn blog posts into value.
We don’t quite charge $10,000 for one blog post.
But, we do charge somewhere in the ballpark of $7,500/mo for packages that often include just 4 posts in total.
What makes this reasonable to our clients is that they aren’t buying 4 blog posts for $7,500 — at least, not in their mind.
They’re buying sustainable, compounding growth.
Even though, functionally, the work that we do might look similar to any content mill on the planet, we’ve managed to escape from the treacherous world of under-selling our competition.
We’ve found ways to disconnect the price of time and materials from the value of the product.

Never Compete on Price: A 3-Step Manifesto

The way that we often think about pricing and value is wrong.
First of all: Price is relative.
Unless you’re selling an openly traded commodity, there is no fixed price for the work that you do. It’s worth what people are willing to pay.
That means that your pricing is only limited by your ability to define your own value.
So, if you don’t want to compete on price, then you need to learn to define that value in a new way.

1. Define Your Value on New Terms

Before you can communicate your value to customers, you need to first understand it for yourself.
Why do people hire you in the first place? Why do they buy what you’re selling?
Chances are that it’s not because of the raw materials or the time that goes into creating it.
Most people buy stuff because it fills a need for them.
Sometimes, that’s purely a functional need. But, more often than not, it’s something bigger or something deeper.
It might be growth, love, happiness, freedom — something big and powerful.
If you’re a freelance writer, you’re not selling time or words.
You’re selling rocket fuel.
Without your work, the company’s marketing plan dies on the vine.
So, how much is that worth?
On a macro scale, it could be worth everything — the whole company depends on what you do.
But, even if we just think about it through the lens of the direct tangible and intangible benefits of your work, you have to consider the whole picture of what you’re selling.
Your work creates value in a number of ways:

It fuels growth for the company
It creates peace of mind for the person who hires you and doesn’t have to keep looking for someone to do the work
It saves, say, 10 hours per month, for someone internally who was previously writing (like the CEO); that time could be spent on activities that generate thousands of dollars on their own
If you’re good and reliable, it saves them the headache of chasing down a writer or bugging people about upcoming deadlines
You help shape and craft the voice of the company

So, what you’re truly selling isn’t words or time. It’s a package deal.
It’s all of these things.
And the price should reflect the value that you’re providing.
If your writing work frees up the CEO to close $10,000 in new sales, then wouldn’t you say that you helped create some of that value for the business?
Even if your product or service can’t, on its own, lead to some kind of spectacular outcome, it’s better to define its value by its critical role in the machinery than as a commodity or a raw material.
Consider your work not through the lens of time or thought or input, but in terms of the value that it creates for your customer.
All of the value.

2. Connect Your Work with the Value it Creates

Next, you need to think about how you begin to communicate the value in a direct and tangible way.
In a way, this is a classic value-based sales.
It means framing the entire conversation through the lens of the value that you create versus the price of the work or the amount of time that goes into its production.
What are they really buying?
If you’ve followed step 1, then you hopefully have in mind an itemized list of the value that you think your work creates for your customers.
These are the benefits — the value that you create.
Now, instead of selling 5 hours of time or a 1,500-word blog post, you’re selling a mission-critical piece of marketing. You’re selling 5 hours of time for the CEO to focus on running the business. You’re selling 5 hours saved editing the work of a less-experienced writer. You’re selling a scalable business model.
If possible, now is also a good time to try to identify opportunities to link your product or service to specific outcomes. Maybe your writing work helped drive $50,000 in sales for a past client. That’s an indication of value.
It’s time to communicate that value.

3. Communicate The Value (Positioning)

Finally, you need to outwardly communicate and position your product or service on the basis of the value that it creates.
This is the critical piece of the equation where you pull your rabbit out of the hat and stop talking about your product or service through the lens of hours, words, or whatever other arbitrary input stops you from raising your price.
Start by rethinking how you communicate versus product.
Anytime you’re presenting pricing to a potential customer, you should make sure that you are framing it with the value of your work and not the basics of the deliverable.
No one buys SaaS software because they get “1 login and 1 password”.
They buy SaaS software because it saves them 10 hours/week of manual accounting work.
And any good SaaS software will communicate, validate, and reinforce that value creation — even hinting at how those precious 10 hours could be better spent on more valuable work.
Sell the benefits — not the features.
But, you also need to take it one step further. Before there is even a discussion about pricing or deliverables, your customers should be thinking about your product or service not for what it is, but for what it does.
This is positioning.
You need to extract the value that we’ve worked hard to define and turn it into a specific, desirable result that you can communicate to potential customers.
“Freelance Writing” is a commodity.
“Writing that Drives Business Growth” is a benefit.
And, as a customer, once I am thinking of your product or service in terms of the benefit that I will get from it, then my perception of its value has officially shifted.
This should be reflected in every communication that you have with potential customers:

Website
Emails
Proposals
Twitter
Whatever else

When you do this, you’ve reframed the conversation that you have with potential customers.
More importantly, you attract a completely different customer.
They no longer come to you to buy a commodity.
They come to you to buy an outcome — business growth.
In this space, there is no race to the bottom.
Your differentiator is not your price. It’s your ability to deliver the results.
Optimist (my content marketing agency) has done this since day one.
We’ve never sold words and pictures. We’ve never really even tried to sell “content marketing” directly.
Instead, we’ve sold growth.
In particular, we’ve sold the promise of sustainable, compounding growth for startups.
And we’ve sold it in a done-for-you, don’t-even-have-to-think-about-it, we’ve-got-it-from-here kind of package. That creates even more additional value — time and resources to focus on other parts of the business.
By and large, this strategy has worked. Almost without trying, we’ve been able to attract our target customer (startups), have value-based discussions (growth goals, targets, and revenue), and price according to that expected value rather than the day-to-day work.
And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what entrepreneurship is all about?
It shouldn’t be about selling your time to the highest bidder. It should be about figuring out how to create value for others and then profit from that value.

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NIH official to 'retire' after being ID'd as author of anti-Fauci posts on right-wing blog

Ozob, a famous cyberpunk RPG character from the Brazilian blog Jovem Nerd, is a NPC in Cyberpunk2077

Biggest lie of the year - Blog Post 'Infinite Inquiries' 7/30/20

[NEWS] "Tower of God" by Siu is planning to resume mid November 2020, details will follow soon according to a recent blog post

Quali sono i siti, blog, forum, canali yt e quant'altro che seguivate ma che poi sono peggiorati irrimediabilmente?

Song stuck in your head? Just hum to search - Google Blog

[Dev Blog] CONCORD introduces the Dynamic Bounty System

NBA 2K21 Next-Gen THE CITY Courtside Report (Dev Blog)

THE CITY

AFFILIATIONS

MAYORS

MyPLAYER

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Staying up to date... what's your favorite tech blog?

Never Compete on Price: Why Clients Pay Us $7,500/mo for 4 Blog Posts

Selling 4 Blog Posts for $7,500 per month

Never Compete on Price: A 3-Step Manifesto

1. Define Your Value on New Terms

2. Connect Your Work with the Value it Creates

3. Communicate The Value (Positioning)

Over the next two hours, we're going to be dropping updates on five upcoming #PS5 games at PlayStation.Blog

Trainers, it looks like different Pokémon are now hatching from 2, 5, and 10km Eggs! Stay tuned for an announcement on our blog soon for more details!

r/conservative upvotes a blog post as news. OP gets belligerently defensive as the validity of his source gets questioned

[BLOG TRANSLATION] Hello. This is SIU

Pregnant-adjacent friends and family: Please keep your articles and blog posts to yourselves!

Soylent’s founder posts a blog spreading debunked misinformation, bizarre conspiracy theories about Joe Biden, and a pledge of support for Kanye

I was bored so I went through (most of) Mrs Midwest's blog posts and here is the weirdest shit I found

"I hear Mass Effect fans should keep an eye on the BioWare blog tomorrow afternoon..."

JustCoco Vlogs - YouTube