Mistakes.

Back in the 1960s, perhaps the two greatest basketball players on our planet were Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. 

Wilt had the gaudier stat line. In fact, in one season, 1961-1962, he averaged 50 points a game and nearly 26 rebounds. He finished, astonishingly, second in the MVP voting to his nemesis, Bill Russell. Russell averaged 17 points a game and 24 rebounds. Russell's Celtics won 60 games and the NBA championship. Chamberlain's Warriors won 49 games and were beaten by the Celts 4-3 in the Eastern Division Finals. 

For my entire long and sad life, roundball aficionados have argued who was the better player. The two faced each other 147 times--roughly two entire seasons of games. Chamberlain consistently outscored and out-rebounded Russell. But Russell's Celts won 87 of those games to 60 for Chamberlain's Warriors. And Russell won eleven championship rings to Chamberlain's two.

(If one agency won more awards, and the other, more business and produced more good work--who's to say which is better.)

In 1965, it was front page news when Chamberlain signed a contract with the Warriors for $100,000, a mammoth amount in that era when basketball was a relatively minor sport, sports salaries hadn't climbed to today's halcyon heights, and Black people simply earned less. (The median US wage in that year was about $7,000.)

Moments after Chamberlain signed his $100,000 contract, Red Auerbach, the General Manager of the Celtics tore up Bill Russell's contract. 

He immediately sent him a new one--Russell didn't have to ask--for $100,001. Auerbach guaranteed that Russell would be the highest-paid basketball player on earth. Russell deserved no less.

My point today has nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with people who work hard for a living and do nothing to look out for themselves. 

Since I started in the ad business back in the early 1980s, my sense is that agency salaries have decreased. This makes sense, of course. About three-in-four agency jobs are controlled by three giant holding companies. Like giant oil companies, giant airlines, giant telcos, giant food companies use their vast size and reach to control pricing on the things they sell, there's no reason to believe advertising holding companies aren't doing the same on the people they buy.

That leaves the people who work in the business--you and me--with very little leverage. You take the wages they offer. Which is, in most cases, better than not working. Most people of a certain career tenure are working more and earning less and have fewer perks than they had a few decades ago.

For five years I've been running GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company. One of the hardest things you have to do when you run your own business is figure out what to charge.

I'd guess, next to worrying about finding work, worries about what to charge have cost more people more sleepless nights than Scarlett Johannson in string bikini.

If you price yourself too low, you're costing yourself money and basically saying to the world, "I'm not very good and I don't cost very much. You can get me cheap." You're supermarket donuts in a world of premium brands. Stale, meh and also-ran.

If you price yourself too high, you might be costing yourself work. Because there are always cheaper alternatives who are easier for clients to buy. You might be high-octane gasoline in a world that runs on regular. Why pay more, as the phrase goes.

What you need to think about is Bill Russell.

What you need to think about is who you are.

What you need to create--before you create a single ad or powerpoint--is a positioning for yourself and your services. 

Russell was the winningest of all basketball players. The one to pick if you want to be number one.

What you need to do is to find a way to sell yourself that's  woven into the price you charge. That way of selling yourself isn't a testable proposition. But if the work you have to show and your reputation backs it up, you can belly-up to the bar and try.

The point is to have an articulated positioning (reinforced by the work you do, the recommendations you've gotten and your general reputation) and set your price according to that positioning.

If you have recommendations and work that says, "this person is unusually talented," charging like everyone else is shooting yourself in the foot and selling yourself short. There will always be people who say you aren't worth it, or that so-and-so is better than you.

People, I'm sure, said to Russell that he's no Chamberlain. In the 1964 NBA Finals for instance (Chamberlain's Philadelphia squad had relocated to San Francisco) Chamberlain swamped Russell statistically, outscoring him 29 to 11 and out-rebounding him 27 to 25. 

Though Russell's Celtics won the series 4-1, people could easily have sullied Russell, perhaps shaken his confidence. Like so many people in our business say, "how could you charge that? So-and-so charges way less."

The point here is to not let anyone but yourself determine what you're worth. The point is to do the work of working to get your work valued more highly.

Some months ago I was working for a saber-toothed Venture Capitalist who I knew was going to balk at my day-rate. He might even say, "you charge three times as much as what other people charge."

I prepared myself for that.

Before our negotiation I walked along perhaps the wealthiest residential street in the world, Park Avenue between 72nd and 79th. I took a photo of every workman's van parked along the street and went home, called a handful and found their hourly rate.

When my potential client balked at my price, which I knew he would, I was ready. "I charge less than a Park Avenue plumber charges. And they start charging you the moment they leave their office in Queens."

I had also prepared a sentence that I used as my screen saver for half a decade. Something to think about, a strategy of sorts and maybe a guilt trip.

"I'm sure you can find someone to do the work at a price you're willing to pay."

Or as my mother taught me negotiating for trousers on the Lower East Side in 1972, "it's still my money and they're still your pants."

Back to my venture capital negotiation above, I got the job and my rate.

Thanks, Mr. Russell.

(Elbows out when you're going for the ball.)