Can you guarantee a valuable experience?

Real price examples from this month:

15 minutes with a specialist doctor costs more than a month at my gym.

Doc’s wait time is several months. I’ve seen him once, and he’s recommended I come back for a follow-up.

The gym is a small hybrid gym where everything is done in small classes, meaning you get a mix of group dynamics and personal training.

If you can measure impact out of 100:

After the first visit to the doc, his impact was barely a single figure… I’d say 3/100. Alternatives have similar wait times and I’m now on them.

Vs the month I get from my gym for the same amount, which I happily pay month after month, and will happily pay when the prices increase, as they inevitably should.

Is not a fair apples-to-apples comparison. I’m aware how strikingly different they are, but what I’m comparing is not the service itself – gym does not replace specialist doctor and vice-versa…

It’s something harder to define (I’m struggling to figure it out), but goes something like this:

Both the doc and the owner of the gym originate from a similar place where, by accepting my request for help, they’re opting making themselves a part of my general well-being, and that requires a certain amount of mental investment on their part.

They could decline my request – that’s an option.

But the gym coach is all in – he texts me if I haven’t attended that week; he comments on my shoes, telling me they’re not supporting me in the right way for these movements and sends me links for the ones that will; he measures my progress formally every few months, but also on the fly while I’m doing classes, noticing if I’m moving better, or nailing something I couldn’t do when I first joined; he asks about my sleep, kids, nutrition, work.

I put his impact at close to 100/100. For someone who I’ve engaged to help make me fitter and healthier, I’d say he’s doing better than nailing it – for me at least, he’s elevating his craft to a level that I’ll now hold others to if I ever try a different gym – which I think will only happen if he goes out of business, or one of us moves away.

I’ll be surprised if the doc remembers me tomorrow, even after he skims his notes before I walk in. Honestly, he shouldn’t have suggested a follow-up. That was his opportunity to recognise he did very little, admit it, and recommend a different path for me.

I opened this talking about price, but the point is about value. Here’s the thing:

If the gym doubles it’s price, I’ll still go. Happily.

If the doc halves his price, his waitlist vanishes, and I can see him tomorrow, I will still not go.

The conundrum is that I couldn’t have come to such a clear realisation without trying the services first. I was willing to pay the cost of admission to find out. One worked out, one didn’t.

So… How do we let folks take us for a test drive, and – whether that experience was good or bad – come out the other side with a valuable experience…

What’s the cost of admission?