This week for some reason I encountered multiple people who are financially well off to the point where they could simply take it easy as money is not really an obstacle in their lives as they have more than enough streams of income to just enjoy life. The thing is though they continually try to make more money as they think it would be too boring to just do nothing and even when they get very old they will still probably want to continue to work in some way.

The common thing out of all these people it seemed was that they first started out with virtually nothing and the only thing on their mind was to make a lot of money and that was pretty much their goal at the time. The great thing is that it actually worked where they followed through with their goal and with a lot of hard work and persistence they accomplished their goal. The bad thing is that once they reached that goal they kind of implied that there seemed to be something missing and so they just keep making more money as life gets boring if they stop since there is nothing else to do.

There was one gentleman that I was talking to about business and financial matters. In general, it was mostly just about our current goals and direction in life. He seemed like he was extremely successful while at the same time did not seem entirely fulfilled in what he was currently doing as I guess it was more like a routine. Similarly, money was the key thing on his mind back then. Since I am a lot younger than him, he began to give me a lot of advice as I learned a lot about his experiences on how he became who he is today and the things to watch out for. Of course, I also talked about my current path and direction and the thing that got him thinking was how he mentioned that my energy and passion reminded him so much of himself when he was younger which he admired.

The thing that sticks out to me the most about all of this is again on how thinking broader like in my previous post about one’s definition of success in life can sure help you in the long run. I personally think it is good in wanting to always be doing something, so to speak, as you want to live life to your fullest potential. When making money becomes like a routine just to fill up time though, I think that is a sign to really sit down and re-evaluate what it is you are trying to accomplish as in my opinion money is just one of the means in life to help you accomplish what you really want.

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For most service providers they usually want you to sign some kind of multi-year contract agreement as it guarantees them business. To do this they usually entice consumers with methods such as offering a free item like say an LCD monitor or a slash in price. Someone once told me as an example that a cell phone carrier usually begins making a profit off a customer after about one to two years of service. While this may sound shocking initially from a consumer perspective, business wise it makes sense as you have to factor in the amount money that was required for things such as advertising just to get one customer. It’s not too far fetched to say that it costs a company $200 or $300 to acquire a customer.

So how this relates from a consumer perspective is that whenever you are offered what looks to be like a great deal which requires a long term commitment, I think you should base the value of it not necessarily in comparison with the vendor’s own price but rather your other options as well. For example, here in Vancouver the choice of having a DSL or Cable Internet connection is a pretty flexible. Now a lot of times a person would say look at the DSL price at its regular monthly rate and think that it is kind of expensive. They then see an option on how if they sign a three year deal they will get a free gaming system.

I know most people do not like to do this, but in this case doing some value comparison instead can potentially save you a lot of money. For example, is saving 50% on a chocolate bar that is selling for $3 when you can get the same thing from another company for $1 elsewhere really a deal? I hope you said no. Like with the case with the Internet connection, by looking at it from a feature and quality perspective you can set yourself up to really determine if you are getting a good deal in comparison to what is out there. As described above, it is in the company’s interest to lock you in a long term plan, so that means you should be equally vigilant in making sure you are getting the best value for yourself as well.

While this may sound like a basic financially common sense to some, I think it is safe to say that most people do not do that. Even worse, don’t sign for a long term commitment just because it sounds like a bargain when in reality you never really use enough of it to justify having a long term service agreement. Gym memberships would be an example of this for many people I’d say. Again, base your decision on the value of what you are getting as oppose to comparing the vendor or service provider’s own original prices before committing to something long term.

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I noticed an interesting thing this week where when I was comparing prices of various spaces, in some cases the contact person was the same as the real estate agent was listed for multiple properties. Now I took my time in looking at various spaces and in the end I narrowed down my searches to certain buildings. Here comes the interesting part.

Now for one property I was talking to a real estate agent who had shown me one of the spaces that I liked. I knew before hand what the minimum and maximum asking prices were in leasing the space in question. When I first talked to the person, she didn’t know too much about me and I was also casual in appearance. She quoted me prices that were close to the minimum asking price and in terms of an agreement I was told I could sign for a term as short as one year if I wanted as that building was very flexible in terms of leasing a space.

About a month later, I saw another building I was interested in which the same person just happened to represent. Of course, I was delighted to meet the person again as she seemed very honest before. In setting up the meeting, this time she had a better idea in terms of the presence of my business. On top of that, I was wearing more typical business attire this time around as I had some meetings afterwards and she almost didn’t even recognize me. For the entire tour of the building, I was being quoted close to the highest asking price and on top of that I was told that it would have to be with a five year commitment as well.

I personally didn’t favor that too much but figured that different buildings have different values. It also didn’t seem like she was as friendly as before when it came to pricing. So to test it out, I asked about the other building I was still interested in and mentioned how the other one was so much more flexible it seemed. She couldn’t remember exactly what she told me since it had been over a month and told me that people have to commit to at least a three year lease with that building. After that, to me it just felt like she was trying to maximize a sale as I seemed like a person who financially had no problems with it. I decided to not go through with any of the offers afterwards as to me honesty plays a big factor on whether or not to do business with someone.

I think this is especially true when it comes to sales people or anyone who say works under commission. I guess there is nothing wrong with that as they are just doing their job as they have to live too, but from my experience you can never really stereotype people either. There are so many times I can say where others neglected to do business with certain people as they thought they were poor which turned out to be the complete opposite. I always like to be consistent and not to stereotype people. Similarly, I don’t try to get more out of another based on how much I think they are worth. I present similar offerings based on their needs. If you think about it too, establishing a good relationship will usually translate into more business.

While there are a lot of people who choose to use a profile sales approach, I just think it is better to be consistent.

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This was kind of an interesting thought that came up today. When it comes to getting a haircut, there are people who don’t mind spending say $100 for one and others who think it is ridiculous as it should only be say $10. I guess in some ways this can be one of those things that you don’t put much thought into as for the most part people want to look their best and so they don’t mind spending the extra money to do so.

When it comes to a male versus a female though, there is usually an astounding amount of people who believe there is no way a guy should spend more than say $20 for a haircut. For myself, I usually spend between $10-$20 per cut. I have been to more high end places before and from my experience it usually either turns out the same or sometimes worse. In general though, I personally don’t see how one needs to spend so much money to simply get a haircut. I can see if it was to style it and all that, but for a just a cut seems like a pure money grabber.

I think I once read that there was a person who charged almost $2000 per haircut. Now that would be an over the top example of way too much in my opinion. There are a lot of times where I see people who complain how essential things are so expensive and at the same time they have no problems dropping say a hundred dollars to get a hair cut. Sometimes I think certain people do it as well based on the price mentality on how if it is more expensive it must be better. There used to be a lady around here that did a really great job cutting my hair and it was for less than $10. She has since moved away from Vancouver to be closer to her family. I personally haven’t found a new place that consistently does a good job and that includes places that are expensive as well. In my case, the price didn’t really mean anything in terms of the end result.

I guess if you need to save money, this can be something to look into as maybe shopping around a bit can get you the same results you are after for less which will give you more money to spend on other things.

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A person told me today that some people in the world just get all the luck which is why they are so good at what they do. On top of that, he told me how without luck you can never be as successful as some of the bigger people out there. I personally always viewed luck as more of an earned happening rather than some random offering that fell from the sky, so to speak.

In many ways, I guess it is about attitude as well as a lot of negative people tend to take the small good things that happen to them as something too minuscule to be considered as a good happening. So same thing with say luck, I think everyone actually gets an equal amount of good luck and it’s just that some people only consider luck as being good if it was something massive in a materialistic type of way such as say you winning a car. For example, being able to donate my time and skills to profoundly help someone in their life can be considered lucky for example as not everyone has the same opportunity to do so.

A great more recent example of earning luck was that I decided I wanted to generate an extra $10,000 in business within a two month time span. Now for me, I actually did not obsess over that where every single day I kept thinking about it. Instead, I just kept working in a productive way as usual. Wouldn’t you know it, somehow in a little over a month there were all of these great people and companies who wanted extremely large projects done which obliterated that $10,000 goal. Some people tell me that it was just pure luck. I respond by saying I guess every other time is just pure luck too then huh?

I think luck is like say planting a seed. You plant something and treat it well in hopes that it will grow into something great. If I plant one hundred of them in an ideal environment and circumstance, can I honestly say it was just pure luck if say one plant grew into something extremely elegant compared to what people are used to? In that case, I would view it more as something that was earned which is kind of like that saying of “The harder you work, the luckier you get”.

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