Your value is what the market will bear

A few days ago I penned a piece titled "What's the right way to assess value?"

After yesterday, I now know that value is determined by supply and demand, and how much the market will bear.

Yesterday was the first day of free agency for the NFL, and money was thrown around like there's no tomorrow.

Brock Osweiler, the former backup quarterback of the Denver Broncos, signed a 4-year, $72 million dollar contract ($37 million guaranteed) with the Houston Texans.

Osweiler has started only 7 games in his career, all last season. 7 games! How can you assess a QB's value after only 7 games?

He was able to land this contract because all of the QBs available in free agency aren't very good, and the prospects coming out of college aren't great, either. And every team needs a good QB.

The Texans determined that his value is that high, even though they had very little data to work with.

Low supply, high demand.

The same is happening with "normal" careers like yours and mine.

In the tech world, software developers are commanding huge salaries because good ones are hard to find and hold on to.

Low supply, high demand.

In my past career in the sports business industry, it's quite the opposite.

Because so many people want to work for a sports team or league, these entities can pay much lower salaries. And there aren't that many of these jobs available.

After graduating with my MBA, I landed a marketing job with a professional sports team and my salary was about half of what I made as a management consultant prior to business school.

High supply, low demand.

It may be tough to deal with the fact that your body of work, while somewhat important, is overshadowed by things out of your control, like market conditions.

All you can do is work hard, be nice, get things done, and control what you can control.

This is day 25 of my experiment to blog for 30 consecutive days.