When President Bill Clinton left office he was earning about $100,000 per speech, from what I heard.

As a professional platform presenter myself, I tip my hat to him and to anyone else who can command such a premium.

Certainly, he was being paid to lend his perspective to current events and to connect his audiences with them.

But Mr. Clinton's perceived value lay elsewhere, I think.

Simply put, he's one of a rare breed: ex-Presidents.

How many people can say, "I shook a President's hand" or even "I was in the same room" with one?

It's a perk, a bonus, a form of status, something to remember for a lifetime, and for which your progeny will commemorate you. So, you or your organization will be inclined to ante up for the privilege.

Scarcity of a resource, as you know, generally makes it valuable. Ask any diamond dealer whether there is a natural shortage of these items, whether they're inherently as rare as people perceive them to be, and he'll probably smile.

Is it worth $250 a seat to catch a Dodger game from the first row, when you can probably find just about the same view from a few yards back, for less than a hundred bucks?

When we market our products and services we need to keep this dynamic in mind, knowing that uniqueness pays. I know from experience, if I am thought to be the only person in the world who has certain techniques for building sales or creating consistent customer satisfaction, especially with angry or difficult people, my professional stock will soar and I'll receive my due.

But if I come across as a commodity, someone you can obtain anywhere, who is purveying the same stuff as everybody else, then I'll be put under great pressure to offer the lowest price.

So, at every turn, we have to fight this marketplace pressure that says we're all alike, no one any better or special than another. We must continuously lobby for our differences, saying that these differences make a difference, in value tendered and received.

Sure, there are seven year-olds that can paint like Picasso, but there was only one genuine artist known as Pablo Picasso. If you want to own one of his doodles, reach deeply into that pocket of yours.

Every ounce of energy we have that we invest in differentiation, in establishing our rarity, is repaid with a pound of profit, and this applies to both product and to service differentiation.

"You can't get this everywhere!" should become our mantra.

When we can assert this, without challenge, we occupy the high ground in the market, and command the price premiums that nearly every businessperson wishes to obtain.