Pattern recognition premium

The compounding advantage of repeated engagements in one industry: each project deepens the specialist’s pattern library — the buyer dynamics, failure modes, and stakeholder patterns already seen — so they diagnose faster and get paid for insight rather than hours. The library is the asset that travels across geography, which is why “we built BYD PH” is a near-perfect credential for BYD Thailand and a weak one for European fintech.

Source: David C. Baker, The Business of Expertise (2017). Baker’s mechanism for why experts earn more: narrow focus produces repeated exposure to the same problems, and the resulting pattern library is the expertise clients pay a premium for.

First used in: 1.4 · Beachhead & the three rings