Why The Place You Sit Matters More Than What You Drink

I just got back from a few days in the south of France. At one point I was sitting at a terrace in a village I could barely pronounce, drinking a glass of wine that cost three times what it should.

I didn't think twice about it.

Not because the wine was extraordinary. It was good. But that's not what I was paying for.

I was paying for the terrace. The light falling a certain way. The stone walls. The sound of the village underneath the quiet. The fact that this particular spot was more desirable than 99% of the places I could drink a glass of wine on any given Tuesday.

And it reminded me of something I see constantly in my work.

Price is a function of desirability and scarcity.

When both are high, the normal rules don't apply. People don't negotiate. They don't compare. They don't ask for a discount. They're happy to pay - because they're not buying the product. They're buying the position.

Most independent experts don't think about their business this way.

They price based on time. On deliverables. On what the market seems to charge. The logic makes sense. But it keeps the conversation on the wine - not the terrace.

When your positioning is specific enough that the right person reads it and thinks "this is exactly what I need" - the pricing conversation changes. Not because you charged more. Because the context changed.

The problem isn't the wine.

Your expertise - the actual work you do - is the wine. And yours is probably excellent. Years of experience. Deep knowledge. Real results for the people who've worked with you.

But here's the thing about excellent wine: it's available everywhere. And it's becoming more available every day. AI can now produce research, analysis, content, and even strategic frameworks that used to require deep expertise. The baseline is rising. Fast.

Expertise alone is no longer scarce.

The terrace is what makes it worth three times the price.

When an expert's positioning is specific enough - their methodology named, their point of view clear, their brand signaling that this isn't something you can get elsewhere - the pricing conversation disappears.

They're not competing. They're occupying a space.

That's the terrace. And it changes everything about how the market treats them.

Most experts are serving exceptional wine from a paper cup at a motorway service station.

Same product. Nothing wrong with the wine. But the context signals commodity. The experience says "this is interchangeable." The price reflects it.

And no amount of improving the wine fixes this. You can source better grapes, age it longer, refine the blend. The wine gets better. The paper cup stays the same. The price stays the same.

Because the market isn't evaluating the wine. It's evaluating the context.

Build the terrace.

The terrace isn't a new website. It isn't a better bio. It isn't more content or a bigger LinkedIn following.

The terrace is the original thinking underneath your expertise - the methodology and point of view you use instinctively but haven't named - extracted, codified, and built into every element of your brand.

It's the architecture that makes your expertise desirable and scarce. Not because you changed what you do. But because you made how you think visible.

The market doesn't pay for the best wine. It pays for the place it most wants to sit.

Make sure yours has a terrace.