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By Thorsten on August 7, 2008 | No Comments
I have had my fridge for a number of years now and often times when I openend the door to take something out, I caught myself focusing on the big Energy sticker inside. You know which one that is, it’s the sticker that tells you how much electricity your fridge uses in an average year.
The number in my fridge is quoted at 651 kWh per year. My next question to that statement is: What does that actually mean? If my fridge takes 651 and all other ones you can buy today with similar size and features only use 500 that must mean I am wasting energy, right?
I am drawing the analogy to personal growth here because it dawned on me what I had just understood. You cannot compare anything unless you are comparing it to the right things. And that is where most people go wrong in life and in measuring themselves.
Firstly, I am a big advocate of creating a little competition to get fired up, but when you compare results in your personal growth, do yourself a favor and don’t compare them to other people. The reason you are keeping score is for yourself and not to get jealous or get sidetracked from your progress. In short, measure any improvement against where you started and compare that to where you are at today.
What is the best way of doing that? I would suggest you get a journal and see if you can committ to a daily routine of writing for maybe 10-15 minutes at first. If that seems too much, try writing for 3 days in a row and then take a 3 day break. Just like most other things in life, the more you do it, the easier it gets. Eventually it will become second nature almost like eating, which is a very persistent habit that most of us reinforce about 3 times per day.
When you journal, it’s important to keep a date and maybe another reference point for yourself, because to measure your progress, it’s often great to be able to go back and give yourself a reminder that you have already achieved so much more than you give yourself credit for.
Lastly, I recommend being easy on yourself especially in the beginning. Set your intentions, start to manifest and let them unfold in your reality. The best part is that you get to celebrate your success along the way.
And much like your fridge, when it comes time to reach a better level of saving energy or upgrading, you will have to invest a little to get that new result. In Personal growth you invest in yourself and the outcome will be with you for good.
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By Thorsten on August 6, 2008 | 3 Comments
Most of you have probably heard by now that the Law of attraction brings to us what we send out with our vibrational frequency. It does so by matching up what we send out and returning to us in kind exactly what we ask for with out state of being.
This is very powerful and also very useful if we can activate it to meet and fulfill what we desire to have in our life. If we ask for money from a state of vibration that comes from a joy of feeling abundant and enjoying to spend money to enhance our state of being futher, more money and opportunity for financial abundance will come to us - guaranteed.
If however, we ask for money from a state of lack and not having money, the universe will in turn respond just as swiftly by sending us exactly what we asked for subconsciously with our being. It will bring to us more lack and more troubles in channeling money opportunities into our life.
So what are we to do if we would like to receive money but have little to start the process and thus have no real experience what it feels like to be wealthy? It’s easy and I’ll give you a quick tip on how to overcome that issue.
You will be reminded of struggle and lack as long as you are surrounding yourself with an atmosphere and people that radiate that energy and thus amplify the problem. Likewise you will soak up the energy and attract the opportunities of wealth when you are surrounded by an environment of wealthy people. So, said differently - you need to be where the rich are. This is also why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It all comes down to your thinking and who you surround yourslef with.
If you are in a big city, find the best hotel. Usually you can find a Four Seasons or a Ritz - Carlton or even a Shangrila or Mandarin Oriental. Likewise you may substitute a fine restaurant if you cannot find a hotel. Next put on a good suit or some fine clothing and go to that place for a coffee, snack or a meal. The key is not the amount of money you spend but to practise being at ease in that environment.
I always seek out the best place I can find on a trip or even at home for an occasional cocktail or meal. It won’t break the bank to do that once a month maybe and you will get a feel for the energy at such a place. It’s a very condusive energy to create more abundance and money in your life because it sort of fast forwards your situation the minute you feel part of the crowd.
I’ll leave you with a quick story from my grandfather who taught me about investing and money whan I was about 10 years old. He lived in a city where a very large publicly traded petro-chemical company (BASF) had it’s headquarters. So, as soon as he could afford to buy shares, he went and bought 1 share of this entity. In Germany, this gets you an invitation to the annual meeting as well as a token for a hot dog and the right to vote. His rationale was simple but had long lasting effects. He said to me:” I can get a free hot dog every year and a beverage at their annual meeting. And what is even more important, I get a free ticket to hang out with billionaires and millionaires from all over the world for a day. And that is worth the shareprice to me.”
Turns out he was right, because the company has grown about 500% since he taught me that lesson.
Go and have fun with this, I cannot think of an easier way to alogn myself with the vibrational frequency of the rich!
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By Thorsten on August 5, 2008 | 8 Comments
Most people I meet have a difficult time getting started with anything new. I have always wondered why that is?
Likely, it has to do with the way we humans tend to think because we love to refer to the past and look forward to the future. And herein lies the major struggle. Neither the past nor the future can help in making the present a better place.
Surely, you have heard the famous saying once or twice: “Yesterday is History, Tomorrow still a Mystery, but Today is a Gift - that is why we call it the Present!”
Beyond the surface of this beautiful proverb is much more than meets the eye when we read it. It brings out the essence of human struggle in a mere few words. We tend to try and live in a time that actually doesn’t exist and then wonder why it isn’t working for us.
We cannot live in the past because all we have is a faint memory of what was, and if you are truly looking at the construct of time and space that humanity has built for itself, you would find out that all memory of the past is heavily influenced by the subjective reality of its observer.
We also cannot live in the future, because no matter how hard we try, things take their time to come to us, and so even if we want it to be tomorrow right now, that wouldn’t yield much success.
Instead of resorting to the common thinking of:” When I have X, I will be happy, or when Y happens I will feel good” we must thus find a more productive way to deal with getting what we want. I am offering a simple solution to help you get there fast and with little effort.
Change your story from the one you are telling now
If I sat down with you today, and asked you to tell me about your life, what would you tell me? About how great everything is, and how you have an abundance of money and friends and love in your life? Or would you tell me about how high the price of groceries has risen, and how gas prices m ake it more costly for you to commute now?
Most people fall into the latter category and that is why they have a lot more negative experiences coming their way. The Law of attraction is an absolute law, one that always works and one that always give us what we want.
I can hear you say now that this is simply not true, because you have been wanting that new car, bigger house, more money or better job for so long now and still it has not shown up. Instead you are being dealt pretty much the same things that you have had for all your life now. Mediocre outcomes…
In essence the law of attraction reads like this: “It will draw like to like, and bring together those things that attract one another.” Think of it like a magnet.
Now here is the catch in the example above. The Law of attraction responds to the vibrational message you are sending out, rather than what you may say with words. So if you say that you are wealthy, but deep inside you are coming from a place of poverty, or a feeling of lack, then the law of attraction will respond in kind and send you what you asked for - more poverty and more lack of money.
This sounds really unfair at first, but if you let that concept sink in for a little bit, it actually turns out to be a truly fair one. Everybody on earth always gets what they ask for.
It’s a grand concept with major implications. You can basically start right away to break with your past of lack or problems and get yourself to a feeling of abundance which in turn will quuickly create more abundance coming to you.
Here is how you can do that:
1) Find out what you want don’t want in life
2) Rewrite these statements in a positive way to get to what you DO want in life
3) Change the story you tell about yourself
Example: 1) “I don’t want to have credit card debt all the time.”
this statement becomes 2)” I now have more than enough money to pay for everything I want in life.”
and then you combiine this with other statements that you have arrived at to form your “New” story about yourself.
The beginning of your story could go something like this: ” I feel secure in knowing that I always have more than enough money to live the lifestyle I desire and I can create abundance in every area of my life. Good things are flowing to me at all times and they come ot me easily and effortlessly because I deserve them…”
Now this is only a story at first, and because it is your uniques story, I would advise you to guard it well and share it with nobody. Instead, repeat it often to yourself and monitor how you feel when you are saying of thinking it. If you feel good inside that means you have reached a point of alignment with your spirit and it is a very powerful point from which to activate the law of attraction.
Then you only have to do one more step which is practise and hold that feeling as often as you can. Here is a little trick that helps you “trick” your mind into felling alligned with your spirit more easily.
If you are a visual person that should work extremely well: Take a frontpage from your favorite newspaper and scan it into your computer. Then use photoshop to re-create the front page for yourself. Let’s say you had the dream of being a millionaire with your small business. What you do is take a picture of yourself and suiperimpose that on the cover photo. Then think of a headline you would love to have written about you.
The end result could be something like the New York Times cover with your smiling face on the fron cover and a headline reading: “Local ice cream entrepreneur creates million dollar business from secret family recipy for authentic Italian gelato.”
Then you print out that copy and pin it on the wall where you can see it everyday. This is the day you have started to turn your life from mediocre to phenomenal and the Law of Attraction will respond by giving you what you asked for.
And remember: Infinite patience produces immediate results !
See you at the top, have fun creating your perfect life…
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By Thorsten on July 31, 2008 | No Comments
I love to travel. The only thing about travelling that I like even more than taking the trip is planning a perfect getaway. So I decided to share with you in this post how you can put together a fantastic travel experience without breaking your piggy bank.
You don’t always have to plan ahead to find a good price
When I was a child, my parents always loved travelling. They were also very well organized and liked to book ahead for trips to get the best price. While that used to be good advice, often times it’s good to look at flight and hotel bookings seperately for this one.
When you take a flight, the rule of thumb says that the longer the flight the more advance purchase time you should allow to get a decent price. With most established carriers, that is the case, because if they can predict today how many seats they will have occupied on a specific date in the future it helps their load routings.
However, if you study the booking codes on airlines, you will see that sometimes it may pay to wait and use the strength of competitive pricing on major routes in your favor. Let’s assume you wish to fly from North America to Europe without a lot of hassle and you would like a good price and maybe collect points or miles from the carrier.
Here’s what I usually do: Use the Internet and find the booking codes for that carrier. They are usually in alphabetical order and the further near the end the letter ranks, the cheaper your seat will be. If you are somewhat flexible with your dates get a range of dates and find the price for your flight.
Next, find out if there is an alliance or code share with another airline on the same flight. For example, if you wanted to go from Vancouver to Frankfurt, you could booke the Lufthansa direct flight and spend maybe S1200,- in peak season, or if you knew that Air Canada also serves that route as a codeshare you may be able to get a booking with them on the same flight for $900,- .
In either case it always pays to look around.
Get to know the system before you book
Another thing you can do is find out if there are new flight routes being phased in, since those almost always give you more points AND lower rates to promote them for a few months.
And lastly, as far a flying goes, you should see if the airline you are focusing on give you points and how many ways you can use them to upgrade your travel experience on future trips. Going back to the Lufthansa example you get miles with their miles & more program which extends itself throughout the entire Star Alliance network. You can collect and redeem them for flights, hotel stays or rental car bookings with ALL major carriers.
If you have a choice of flying, make sure that you get points with them every time. That way, as you get towards collecting enough miles for an upgrade or a free flight, your status grows in the network and they will treat you like a star to keep you happy.
Since I became a Silver Member with them, they have upgraded me on long haul flight about 6 times in the past 2 years. Had I booked those flights on a regular ticket, it would have cost more than $20,000 alltogether.
The World of Hotels is at your fingertips…
With finding a great hotel at a reasonable price it’s a bit like with the stock market. If you follow the masses you will seldom be a happy traveller.
My rule of thumb is very simple:
I don’t typically look at hotels that have over 250 rooms (there are exceptions)
I stay away from the mass market chains
I don’t usually book via 3rd party websites (such as expedia or priceline)
I always do research in unusual places
One day a few years ago I stumbled upon a series of booklets published by the clothing maker Louis Vuitton. I got curious and bought the set. This turned out to be a great idea. Not only did I get 8 books on travel intelligence from a local viewpoints for all major European Cities, but it only cost me less than $90,- for them.
Subsequently I planned a wonderful 10 day trip to Paris, Germany and Athens with that knowledge and people where astonished at how I found the hotels I did.
For example, the untrained traveller will ask for a luxury hotel in Athens and end up with one of 2 things. Either a chain hotel of mediocre quality at an inflated price, or a true luxury hotel for a truly luxurious price. But what if I wanted a small luxury hotel in an unbeatable location for the price of a dinner for 2?
That’s where local knowledge and offbeat research help you get a great hotel room. one more tip I will share with you before I finish up this post:
Always do you research on the marketplace. The best deals on fabulous hotels are:
1) When few other people are travelling
2) During the soft launch, renovation or other special circumstances
For that reason, I am sunscribed to the newsletters of Four Seasons, Hyatt and Starwood, because they always inform their best customers and I have had mostly outstanding results from following the above rules for my travel.
I look forward to your feedback on this topic. Do if you have any comments, advise, or questions, just get in touch and join the conversation.
There’ll be more on the topic of travel and Lifestyle coming soon, so grab your RSS feed and stay tuned.
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By Thorsten on July 30, 2008 | No Comments
I just want to send a shoutout to GBlogger at www.canigetrichonasalary.com for including my article in the latest edition of the Money Hacks Carnival. If you want to check out the carnival, you can find it here:
Money Hacks Carnival #23 — It’s Gotta Be The Shoes!
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By Thorsten on July 26, 2008 | 4 Comments
Just a few days ago marked the one month anniversary of this blog. One month hardly seems a timeframe to get excited about, but in the online world that is a big deal.
Most blogs these days are started with the best intentions and a lot of excitement only to have been abandoned by their creator in a matter of less than a month due to frustration or lack of traffic in the early stages.
I was fully aware of these statistics when I set out to make a mark with this blog, so I decided on two things right up front:
1) I would committ to do all the work needed to get my new blog through the fist month and beyond regardless of the stats it would bring
2) I enlisted the coaching services of a blogger that had turned his own experience into a successful online platform helping people and deriving a stable income from it.
So at first there is the creative but crucial phase where I had to decide what niche I would focus on with my blog. That was actually much harder than I thought, since I have many diverse interests and could think of so many topics that I can write about.
Then came the part when the actual work begins. Within a matter of hours, I had a domain, a hosting service and a ton of small tasks to install Wordpress with all the trimmings that make blogs tick. Countless plugins breathe life into the skeleton of every blog you read out there and finding the ones I need and would use turned into a major scientific project.
The next step was without a doubt the most important one of them all: setting my intentions and a timeline to reach them. Without those you will never know if you are on track and how well you are doing. I found it very important to set my benchmarks independently from other outside parameters.
That means I decided from within and just for myself what success meant at every step rather than comparing an infant blog like the one I just started to a super successful one and then end up being frustrated and not carry on.
I will never forget how exiting it was for me to write the announcement that I juts launched my vlog and to find out that somebody actually came to take a look. Even more fantastic is the feeling when I write about a topic that exudes passion for me and to learn in the comments I get on that post that my readers share that sentiment or even have advice flowing back to me that way.
Traffic and readers are the lifeline of every blog, because unless you are launching one to stay in touch with your parents while you backpack through India, it’s important to have a conversation with your readers. I found that a frequent posting schedule is best and that it’s also good to pack my posts with some good value that is useful right away to my readers.
Today, as I mark just over a month of blogging, I am still around, still writing content and loving it. I have so much more to share and offer that I know I will not run out of posting ideas for a long time to come. At this point I would like to thank all of you that have made a stop at my blog to read and I truly appreciate all your comments and feedback.
This blog is only getting started, so I’ll see you back here tomorrow and on the way to the top. I have reached and broken most of my personal targets but more are being set up to reach in the future.
Thank you very much for a super great first month online.
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By Thorsten on July 22, 2008 | 2 Comments
Quite often when I listen to the news these days the outlook on so many issues is a rather bleak and pessimistic one. The economy is entering a recession, global warming threatens to change the face of planet earth and violence and crime are on the rise, not to mention terror attacks when you go on a vacation outside of Disneyworld.
Of course I am exaggerating a bit, but you get my point.
The second aspect I want to touch on in this post is the glorification of the past by many of us, because we somehow misremember and selectively delete all the bad and only keep the recollections of rosy days in our mind. Last year everything was better and 10 years ago, ‘Oh My’ gas cost only 35 cents and nobody would talk back to you if you asked them to pick up a piece of litter in the street.
So here is my question: “Are things today really progressively worse? Have we as a society lost the fabric of decency, respect and mutual appreciation?” I think not!
As I was driving home from work I always go through a part of downtown Vancouver that is called the Eastside, and unlike Manhatten, in this case eastside is not where the top real estate values and zipcodes are found.
It’s more of an area where police have a hard time dealing with drug issues and petty crimes as well as homelessness and vandalism to people’s property.
So as I enter this part of town, I am thinking what a warm and dry day it is and how nature is coping with the lack of rainfall we have had for about 2 weeks here. Now I know that this may sound crazy if you live in Southern California, but 2 weeks without rain is a big deal in Vancouver, considering we get about 200 days of it per year.
I drive by a row of newly planted trees that are very dry looking when I spot a rather rough looking individual mucking about with a container they are carrying out of an adjacent Starbucks. It turns out that this homeless man actually took the time to use his water container and ask at Starbucks to have it filled up so he could provide water to the row of trees that are in the street. The glance of caring devotion he had for these young trees was something you would normally see when a mother tends to her child.
As I am instantly feeling a warmth and comfortable feeling in my heart, I paused and thought about what I just saw back there. This man was more connected with creation and cared more about a city tree than he did about collecting pop cans or getting in line at the nearby soup kitchen to care for his own dinner. Instead he provided for mother nature what she couldn’t provide for herseelf at this point.
The key point to me is not the isolated act of caring or kindness, but the underlying proof it provides to show that small acts are still happening, that they are indeed a lot more common than we think.
I also know the other side of karma, for I have experienced it myself in cases of charity. Most people are very sceptical about giving to a beggar in the street for one reason or another. It may be that they are uncomfortable to be solicited for money. Or maybe they believe that even if they gave any change, it would only be wasted on alcohol or illegal drugs rather than food and shelter.
Until a few years ago, I too shared some of those beliefs, but then I read a very powerful book by Deepak Chopra. In that book, the author describes the concept of unconditional giving, or giving for the sake of giving rather than to make a point or further a certain goal.
This concept is one of the most uplifting and liberating concepts I want to share with you here. If you can give any amount or do any favor, not to be thanked or rewarded or even be concerned about the consequences of your action, you have truly experienced what it means to give.
I remember an autumn evening at the Seattle Pike market after the stands are closed and most tourists are gone from the area. We were in town just for the night and had been considering what to have for dinner. At that point my attention got drawn to a scruffy old man who sat alone at the far end of a roofed in area and ate a sparse supper. I couldn’t tell whether he was homeless or just looked that way because of the dirty work at the fish market or the boat docks during the day.
Either way, I felt my inner voice nudging me to give him some money. I actually didn’t have any change or small bills on me, all I had was a twenty and larger. But even that didn’t really phase me as an issue. So I walked over to him and handed him the twenty dollar bill and wished him a good evening as I walked away. I can’t even recall what he said to me at this point, but actually that is not important here anyways.
What was important to me was the tramendous sense of sharing and even accomplishment I received from giving away some of my dinner money. I didn’t care what he spent the money on, or even if he was deserving or not. I had learned to not be attached to my money and to share what was given to me to allow more of it to flow into my life.
Without a doubt, charity and other acts of kindness are one of the key foundations of success in my life because from my own experience, if I actually added up what I have given away and what I have recieved from totally unrelated sources in return, I would come up with at least a ten to one ration in my favor.
This is the way of the universe.
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By Thorsten on July 20, 2008 | No Comments
I’ll be honest with you on this one - I never really enjoyed math in school. But every once in a while there was a class I loved. The story I have chose to share today is from one of those classes.
The inventor of the chess game was sent a courier from the king he invented it for. The courier asked him to appear at the king’s palace because the monarch had a question for him.
So, of course the guy went to see the king and as he kneeled before him was asked this question: “What is it that you want in exchange for inventing this formodable game for your king? I can give you a bag of gold or anything else you desire. What would you like.
So the guy thought about it for a few seconds and said to the king: Could I simply ask you for some rice instead of gold? I would like you to reward me with one grain for the first field on the chess board. Then put double that amount, two grains, on the second one and double that again on the 3rd and so on.
The king, who was very amused by this request and thought the man before him was a fool for asking for a couple handfuls of rice, quickly agreed and ordered his treasurer to pay the man as he asked for.
Here is where the magic of exponential growth comes in. If you take the 64 fields on a chess board, and multiply that out by grains of rice, I don’t think the king was able to have a palace left after paying up.
As I said before, I’m no math expert, but the final number of rice was so staggering that it outweighed the gold he could have asked for many many times.
The lessons from this story are wonderful:
1) Never dismiss a small number that is rapidly growing. What that means for you life is that unless you have a sqare zero to start with, just start with anything. Make your first penny and then set an intention to double it in a short timeframe.
2) Always calculate what people are asking you for before agreeing to pay a certain interest rate or anything else that grows quickly (like compound or credit card interest). It is often deceptive to look at the starting number before you have an idea about the final tally. This will help avoid predatory lending practises and put a new face on your credit card statement.
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By Thorsten on July 18, 2008 | No Comments
Why we do what we do
Our world of human behaviour is not a rational one. That can be seen as bad, because it makes bahvious hard to explain and predict. Or it could be a blessing, because it allows us to create Psychology and other studies that produce a ton of books on this topic each one promising to unlock the deeper secrets of our brain and emotional driving forces.
So what then is it that explains what we do? If humans were rational then a certain cause would always have a certain effect, and that effect would be a guaranteed outcome every time. In other words, if you do A you are guaranteed to get B as a result.
In the world of Science that may hold true, but when you introduce our brain and emotions into to equation it’s all different. So then, how can I claim in my headline that there is only a few simple things needed to win? Well, let me illustrate.
In Sports there is the clock that often seperates the first place winner from the runner up by mere thousands of a second. Or it’s a tenth of an inch that decides over victory versus being on the back bench. The difference between top stop and second is arguable very, very tiny.
On the flip side, however, the ’payoff’ the winner receives is almost exponentially larger than that given to the 2nd spot. Tiger Woods is slated to cross the billion dollar line in career earnings next year, while most PGA tour players will mostly break even for the year.
Let’s cut to the chase
In 99% of all of us, we know exactly what we would need to do to get ahead. But we don’t do it because we think that success is so far away that we can forsee years of slavery to our profession or calling before we get to reap the rewards. I’m here to tell you that is bogus.
Everything in nature (of which we are part as a human race by the way) grows in a non-linear fashion. It grows exponentially. Said differently, if you simply had to put in one more hour, or send on more email or do one more thing to improve yourself and your ‘product’ and deeply held the belief that it would put you over the top to spark that exponential growth, would you do it?
OF COURSE YOU WOULD !
Allow me to quickly give you an example from the blogging world. Darren Rowse over at Problogger has a little survey on his blog that asks this: “How Many Posts Did You Publish On Your Main Blog In May?”
Are you ready for the results? Here they are: Out of 10 possible answer ranges from zero to 81+ the overwhelming majority of nearly 1900 votes posted a whooping 1-10 posts in the whole month of May. I think that says a lot right there. Even more astonishing is the fact that 71 % or respondents have not hit the one post a day for their main blog and are topping out between 21-30 per month.
So if you ever wondered why 10 % of the bloggers make about 90 % of the money out there, here is your answer.
Want to turn this around in your favour?
It’s easy - really!
Just follow the simple philisophy of one per day. Do one more targeted thing than the day before, or apply one more small idea. The results, I promise you, will not be simply one more dollar from this exercise, but over time they will create an unsurmountable lead that propels you to the top. Growth is exponential, your input is marginal.
Have fun winning !
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By Thorsten on July 17, 2008 | 3 Comments
Let me be very clear about this right up front: I am NOT telling you that sharing is a bad idea - because it is not. I am also not telling you that charity is a bad idea - because it is not. What I am going to address in this posting is a more subtle but equally widespread tweak if you will, that could be the difference between financial independence and neverending poverty for YOU.
But first, a little story. A good friend and coach of mine, once told me about her background in Software support to merchants and end users. She was in a service oriented business and would answer various questions to troubleshoot issues for her callers.
One day she decided that it would make sense for her to adjust her rates and increase them, because she felt that she was always busy and many clients called back to ask her fos advise again and again. Since she was not the manager she sat down with her boss and informed him of her rate increase. At this point, not only did the manager not object to this idea, but none of the clients even mentionend that they were unhappy with the higher rates.
As a matter of fact she was even busier than before, except now getting higher pay for her time and expertise.
In Blogging and in many other business ventures, whether online or offline, some of use choose to get paid for our time and others for our performance. If you ever intended to really succeed in any business you have to know what you are worth to others and be prepared to charge them that rate. I know that this seems really obvious, but for every successful website I looked at in the past month I found at least 5 that are not ever going to make it in the way they are set up and run.
I’m not talking about the design, flashy code or banner spots. What I mean is a simple page that let’s people know the rates for advertising, reviews promotions and other services. You have to remember that the customer will generally take the lazy route to get what they want from you. So if you have a clear and confident pricing structure with available space or time and an easy way to pay for it, you are half way home.
And here is one other point that I cannot stress enough: Don’t be afraid to charge people for something that you are good at. Don’t pretend you are a charity, or that you are not worth the full price for some reason or another. I’ll let you in on a little secret from a marketing maverick that I greatly admire. His name is Donny Deutsch and he currently has a show on TV called “The Big Idea”. His background is the CEO spot of a large advertising firm so you better take note of his advise, since it’s battle tested.
He said: “When I submitted a proposal to a client, I always made sure that we were priced at the top of the competition. Firstly, because I knew we did great work and had success to back it up, and secondly because we could always negotiate and come down a little if the client had concerns or requests.”
I think that is a great philosophy that is totally underused today. How many times do you see businesses compete on the lowest this and the lowest that? Enough already ! If you are giving top tier value, charge a top tier price and leave the competition in the dust.
Everything else is leaving money at the table, and in my opinion, that giving your money away where you don’t have to.
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