The Value of Your Silver Dollar

Over the years I have put a ton of mental energy into the concept of value, especially how people and their contributions are valued so differently in various situations. I have read many articles in the past discussing a person's value at work, coming away with lots of reinforcement and challenges to some of my thinking. I really wanted to get these ideas out on the table in the hopes it can help others in their journey. My concept is around understanding and knowing your value while finding a place in your career where you present and maintain the highest value possible. It sounds simple, right? Go look for a company that really wants you. The problem is that many of the analogies out there are simple to understand, but extremely difficult to execute. My own career has come full circle, and has taken me more than a couple decades to get the current point of theory on this concept. I'll share what I've experienced so far, knowing that I am a "learning machine" as I often say, and hope to continue to improve. I needed to find a way to visualize and describe my understanding of being valued at work. The Value of the Silver Dollar concept came to me at 4:00 AM when I couldn't sleep one night thinking about this.

The idea is simple, I, we, you have a silver dollar (or are the silver dollar). This is a metaphor for your offering when looking for work, selling something, etc. There are millions of silver dollars out there, some people have other items for sale, but there a ton of silver dollars. Our employer/organization, even customer, are the buyers of the coin. If you take a silver dollar to pawn shop, the dealer may look at it and say "It's a dollar", US currency. This is true, it is. I have to make money, so I'll give you 90 cents for it and hope I can trade it for a dollar or maybe $1.10 if someone really wants a coin instead of a dollar bill. This person has no other experience of knowledge beyond this level. Maybe you negotiate this up to a whole dollar if you put some effort in.

If you take the coin to precious metals shop or even a jeweler this person eyeballs it carefully, looks up the amount of silver actually in a silver dollar, then breaks out a calculator, determines the current price of silver, etc. They do some research, but it's their research based on what they know about metals. They determine there is $24 in silver based on today's spot price. They will melt it down and sell it as bullion or convert to jewelry, etc. They offer you $22 because they have some work do to on this deal to take in $24 of silver.

You then take the coin to a basic coin shop in your town. This person takes a closer look. They clean the coin, look up where it was minted, He finds that it's in reasonable shape, looks it up on the website and tells you coins from that year at that mint combined with the quality after cleaning shows similar silver dollars are selling for $27, usually some small amount over the price of silver because it has been minted into a coin, etc. He offers you $24 since he will need to resell it to make a profit.

Then you bring your coin to a coin show/fare and find someone who looks at your coin. They see you had it cleaned at the coin shop, so they know what shape it is in. They know nothing more than the coin shop owner about coins in general, however they have been building a collection of coins with certain grades, years, mints, etc. and had trouble finding something they really liked that matched their collection. They know it’s only worth $27, but it will round out their collection, making the whole more valuable, and they really want it. So this person offers you $50 because they want to get it now while they found the right coin.

Finally (I promise), you take your coin to an art museum, historian, professional collector. He takes a very careful look, deliberately checks very specific areas with a magnifying glass, and looks it up in his own special set of notes and database. He is a coin expert and historian. He tells you this particular coin was generally pretty common, but yours had a mistake in the stamping that was corrected very quickly, but 50 of these coins from that limited mistake made it into production. Only 15 are currently known to still exist, and there is very specific market for people that want this coin. It is incredibly valuable and although he is not in the market for this coin, he knows 2-3 people he would expect would happily pay over $10,000 to get their hands on it. It depends whether those collectors have already gotten one of the limited coins or not. If they already have one then they may not even want to buy it.

At this point you either think I'm crazy and stopped reading, or are saying wow, there are a ton of analogies in here. Understanding the scenarios above is very simple, so why is it so hard for us to execute this in our own lives?

I spent most of my career as what I'll call the generic silver coin. I bounced from pawn shop to jewelry shop, found some luck at a coin shop or two, those coin shop owners appeared to be educated, but in the end they had no idea how to grade my coin and many others. Offering way too much for some, not enough for others. Their businesses suffered. A similar story to what many of us witness over the course of a career. But how would I know any better, I wasn't a coin shop owner or expert in coins. I guess I had hoped the owners and managers were. The problem was I didn't even know what I was worth, or other coins for that matter. I let the shop I was in at the moment tell me what I was worth and if I ended up in pawn shop I got mad and walked out. I was AT LEAST smart enough to know there was an ounce of silver in me and I could always look up the spot price. I had someone massively lowball me one time. I got mad at the guy and blamed him. For a split second I started wondering if I was just a lump of silver, or even less, like many other coins. However, I had one small advantage. My anger and resentment kept telling me something that kept me from believing it. I don't know why. I thought I had an attitude problem (and I did), but it was based around frustration. I knew I could do more, be more, but had no idea how, why, or a method to articulate it. Keep in mind "worth" isn’t necessarily about money. It was more about the treatment, opportunity, collaboration, leadership, respect. Any decent coin shop will get close to offering you the face value of the coin, but you want the real value, you want to make a difference that your organization cares about.

So one day, mostly out of frustration, I started my own business. I was thinking if no one else saw enough value in me, then I might as well go see what value I can provide myself, proving once and for all if I was just a generic coin or if there was some rarity in there. Fast forward 10 years and all that comes with that journey. It's a different story for a different day, and certainly the most educational of my entire life, but it's more about the full-circle education that culminated right after selling my business that really hammered the point home.

The transition of working for yourself to someone else taught me something incredibly important. During the years of working for myself, I had to figure out what my coin is. It's flaws, strengths, mint, condition, year, go talk to people about coins, go to coin shows, shops, conferences. Evaluate OTHER coins. Buy other coins, get offers on your coin, etc. Bottom line is learned a LOT about certain types of coins so I knew exactly what I had. When I went to work for someone else, my coin was judged based on the shop I was in once again. This time I understood and realized that it's not the shop owner's fault that they aren't evaluating the coin in the same way I was. Actually, they are valuing it properly based on their perspective and needs. I can get mad at the pawn shop guy for not offering me what my coin is worth, but that's because he has no idea how to value coins or sell them. He doesn't really need or want coins, so it's just a transaction to him. I have nothing against pawn shops or jewelry stores, but I now know quickly not to sell them my coin, AND I learned how much my coin is worth to the right buyer, who that buyer is, when it is most valuable, and why, plus I have proof to back it up. If I want to sell it, I know how to go find a buyer that will put a smile on my face and their face. Why? Money? Not really, that's only part of it. It's not greed, we just want to be valued properly, demonstrate that value to make a sizeable impact, and continue to increase that value. We also don't want $23 for a coin that's worth $75. It hurts our self-esteem, demoralizing and burning us out. It makes us feel like we have no idea how to value a coin after all. We question our judgment. The most rewarding part is finding the coin collector that wants your coin for more than part of their daily transactions. They want it because they know what additional value it holds for them and their collection, and they would not simply sell it to someone who offers them fair market value or a little more. It goes beyond a simple finances. They truly value what you have to offer because of the value it brings to their organization.

There are some major points I want to highlight that really helped me:

1. It's as much about YOU as it is about THEM. You need to know which shop to go into. You need to figure that out. Do not rely on others to tell you your value, because you will get answers based on what they think they need or their very limited knowledge of you. Find the buyers for YOUR coin.

2. Remember to understand the perspective of others (as well as your own). The jewelry store isn't trying to rip you off by offering you $23 dollars. They only know they want the silver metal. They are not in the coin business or collecting for historical or art value. Bring them your heirloom jewels, not your coin. Don't get me wrong, there are still PLENTY of jewelers who will offer you $15 for your $24 of silver - be extra careful of them, because you can get hit with the extra "lack of integrity or knowledge tax".

a. Know quickly where your skills won't even be understood because they don't need them or don't know they need them. Trying to create that awareness can be very difficult, it's much better to find someone who knows they need it and value it.

3. Learn your skills / value and then go find those that really need it. Networking, talking to colleagues, build a group of people you trust and continue to understand the needs of business and where you excel in it. If you don't understand what your skills are and how it can impact a business, then it doesn't really matter who you are selling it to. You are back to letting the shop owners almost entirely decide your worth armed with no knowledge of your own. You may already have all the right skills, but just haven't figured out how to identify the value of them.

4. The same people with the same knowledge have needs at different times. What they are willing to pay will vary greatly based on timing. It can be frustrating for 2 different coin shop owners to give you varying prices on the same coin. However, when one of them already has 100 similar coins he or she can't unload, they will offer you a fire sale price for yours. The opposite is also true. Timing is everything. Pay attention and understand the WHEN part of the puzzle. When I was in business for myself, the best thing I did early on was stay in contact with as many people as I could. WHEN they needed me they reached back out, but not before then, and not if I hadn't maintained the connection. What you bring to the table will be critical at certain times, know how to understand that with research and networking. There's a reason all the security software companies call into organizations right after they have a public data breach.

a. Keep talking to the coin shop owners. You will uncover who has too many of some, not enough of others, and you might get introduced to a couple collectors to see what they want and need. If you help them find some coins here and there they will do the same for you. Knowledge Is power and that knowledge is current, relevant, information.

5. I intentionally downplayed the part about running a business because I don't want you to think that's what you should do or need to do. It's not necessary. It helped me because I needed all that experience to figure things out, but many people are a lot smarter than I am and can learn faster. The moral of the story is really to find the Ven diagram of:

a. What are you really good at (get good at it, hone your craft) - know your craft

b. You enjoy doing it and love the impact you can have when done properly

c. Who needs those skills you have and why

d. What is the market paying for those skills when they are highly needed

e. Combine the above with who on your list to talk to have figured out they need and want those skills (big one)

f. Culminating in the right timing for those skills to be super beneficial to the organization at the right time

If you can maximize all of those, you've got a good chance of finding the coin collector that really wants your coin and believes it is worth more than the books tell him/her, and it is so important to add your coin to the collection that it puts a big smile of pride and satisfaction on their face if they are lucky enough to buy it. Maximize your value, make the largest impact, be in a place where it is recognized and appreciated, and you will truly be happy.

-Ryan