The Horse Lady

The horse lady story is about operational difference.

Imagine that for whatever reason you've decided to talk to a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist or counselor. We'll call them all therapists. However you'd normally do it, you go on Facebook or Google, or ask ChatGPT, and start researching.

The next day your best friend or spouse asks how it's going. Pretty good, you say. I've narrowed it to five.

For four of them, you go to their office, sit in a chair, they sit in a chair opposite, they ask you questions and you talk. And then there's the horse lady. With the horse lady there's no office. There's a farm nearby, and you go out and she puts you on a really old, gentle horse. She gets on a horse next to you, and the horses walk down a path, and she asks you questions, and you talk about yourself.

Because of licensing, insurance, ethics, education and board certifications, they are all selling the exact same thing. The only real difference between therapists is style, and they're all pinned in to do certain things and never do others. They might even charge the same, because most of the time they're reimbursed by health insurance. Same service, same price. And right away four of them get crushed into an amalgamation. For four of them, you drive to an office and sit in a chair. And then there's the horse lady.

She gets her own category. That doesn't mean she gets all the business. If these were the only five suitable therapists within a hundred miles, you'd expect about 20% of the market each. More likely the horse lady gets 21 or 22%, and everyone else is at 19 and change, or high 18. If you've been in a small business, you know that the difference between 20% of a market and 23% is the difference between getting by and spending six weeks a year in the Bahamas.

It's valuable in itself to have strangers instantly categorize you into a category of one. Not because they'll all want to buy from you, but because everyone else gets crushed down and has to compete on convenience or price, which is not great for margins. You preserve your margins, you stand out automatically, and your marketing is way easier if you're the horse lady, and not one of the four.