Money is useless! (by itself)

[kommen]

OK, I'll admit I'm not qualified enough to have a say on this, because I'm really not rich. But nevertheless, I'd like to provoke a discussion, especially since I'm from a third-world country where the job market is a lot worse than in the developed world. And I intentionally titled this thread the way it is to catch your attention.

Money is... just a piece of paper. If whatever I want can't be bought with money, then money really is useless to me. However, when someone sells what I want in exchange for money, suddenly money becomes valuable to me because I can use it to buy what I want! And I'll extrapolate this logic to 8 billion people on Earth.

You don't need money. You need the basic human needs, then you need your dream mansion, your dream car. You need comfort, safety, health and reliable healthcare, etc for you and your family. You need your dreams to come true. If all those are magically granted to you right now, would you still be motivated in your business?

The point of this post isn't to say "mOnEy Is EvIl AnD hApPiNeSs Is FoUnD iN tHe LiTtLe ThInGs". What I really want to say is wherever you live, from the impoverished slums of Burundi to the wealthiest cities of Switzerland, there's ALWAYS a way to provide value to your people and charge them for it. This is how I got rid of my mindset of "I'm from a third-world country, therefore there's no hope for me!!!"

OK maybe money isn't useless after all, maybe it does serve one and only one purpose: it's a beautiful tool that measures your contribution to your society, and hence allowing a collective societal teamwork. This is also why I believe that fiat money isn't actually fiat; it is based on SYSTEMS. Unrelated but I think bad systems are the cause of inflation. For entertainment, I bought a book about economics to learn more about this.

Can't afford a system yet? Why not help a richer person make dreams come true for other people by improving his systems? (aka freelancing!) You'll probably make him richer, and he'll thank you.

When absolute third-world brokies introduce themselves to this forum, they are advised to help business owners to increase sales. But how do you actually increase their sales? Why would customers buy from them? These are the shower thoughts that provoked me to write this post, as I was also surprised by the somewhat lack of answers for that in this forum.

What are your thoughts? Is this a good mindset or is it secretly a poison pen?

 

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[Kevin88660]

OK, I'll admit I'm not qualified enough to have a say on this, because I'm really not rich. But nevertheless, I'd like to provoke a discussion, especially since I'm from a third-world country where the job market is a lot worse than in the developed world. And I intentionally titled this thread the way it is to catch your attention.

Money is... just a piece of paper. If whatever I want can't be bought with money, then money really is useless to me. However, when someone sells what I want in exchange for money, suddenly money becomes valuable to me because I can use it to buy what I want! And I'll extrapolate this logic to 8 billion people on Earth.

You don't need money. You need the basic human needs, then you need your dream mansion, your dream car. You need comfort, safety, health and reliable healthcare, etc for you and your family. You need your dreams to come true. If all those are magically granted to you right now, would you still be motivated in your business?

The point of this post isn't to say "mOnEy Is EvIl AnD hApPiNeSs Is FoUnD iN tHe LiTtLe ThInGs". What I really want to say is wherever you live, from the impoverished slums of Burundi to the wealthiest cities of Switzerland, there's ALWAYS a way to provide value to your people and charge them for it. This is how I got rid of my mindset of "I'm from a third-world country, therefore there's no hope for me!!!"

OK maybe money isn't useless after all, maybe it does serve one and only one purpose: it's a beautiful tool that measures your contribution to your society, and hence allowing a collective societal teamwork. This is also why I believe that fiat money isn't actually fiat; it is based on SYSTEMS. Unrelated but I think bad systems are the cause of inflation. For entertainment, I bought a book about economics to learn more about this.

Can't afford a system yet? Why not help a richer person make dreams come true for other people by improving his systems? (aka freelancing!) You'll probably make him richer, and he'll thank you.

When absolute third-world brokies introduce themselves to this forum, they are advised to help business owners to increase sales. But how do you actually increase their sales? Why would customers buy from them? These are the shower thoughts that provoked me to write this post, as I was also surprised by the somewhat lack of answers for that in this forum.

What are your thoughts? Is this a good mindset or is it secretly a poison pen?

I didn’t quite get the logical flaw of your post. You started with “money is not important” to “freelancing to rich people”.

There are many millionaires/Billionaire in India, Russia and China who didn’t make their money freelancing online.

I am from Singapore where the average income if 5 times the average Chinese and 15 times that of average Indonesian. But many of the top end real estates in Singapore are owned by tycoons from these two regions.

 

[heavy_industry]

If all those are magically granted to you right now, would you still be motivated in your business?

Yes.
Highly motivated.

And I don't want anything to be magically granted. That would ruin the fun of the game.

I will have everything that I want when I will deserve it.

 

[Simon Angel]

When absolute third-world brokies introduce themselves to this forum, they are advised to help business owners to increase sales. But how do you actually increase their sales? Why would customers buy from them? These are the shower thoughts that provoked me to write this post, as I was also surprised by the somewhat lack of answers for that in this forum.

1. You specialize in a skill. Let's say that's web design.

2. You browse through your local businesses' websites. You land on a plumber.

3. You notice their website is filled with useless content that 99% of their customers don't need along with a bunch of uncompressed images that triple their page's loading time.

4. Then, you notice they only have a button for their "contact us" page in the footer menu, the contact form is broken, AND their phone number has to be copied rather than simply clicked.

*Sure, the site looks decent—but is it an actual asset that helps this plumber acquire more clients OR is it just a glorified business card? Great design doesn't necessarily "look" good but rather feels good, is easy to navigate, and gets the job done.

5. Now imagine you need plumbing services yourself:

Can you quickly and easily contact this business? Does their website make them look professional and trustworthy?

6. If the answer is "No" to any of these, pick up the phone and ask them if they're happy with their website.

7. Regardless of their answer, tell them you can help them get more calls/emails from potential customers and ask if they have a time slot for you to meet this week.

8. Meet up and get to know about them and their business.

*Understand that while you might be able to improve their site and get them more customers, they might already have way too many and that their issue is that they aren't delegating their work to others i.e. hiring other plumbers to work for them. So, listen to what they're saying and focus on THEM and their needs, not your desire to sell your service.

9. Help them solve their problems through your specialized skill, general business knowledge, or common sense.

10. Get paid. Or work for free if it's your first client.

11. Leverage your results to find more clients and negotiate better pay.

 

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[kommen]

I didn’t quite get the logical flaw of your post. You started with “money is not important” to “freelancing to rich people”.

There are many millionaires/Billionaire in India, Russia and China who didn’t make their money freelancing online.

I am from Singapore where the average income if 5 times the average Chinese and 15 times that of average Indonesian. But many of the top end real estates in Singapore are owned by tycoons from these two regions.

I didn't mea

I didn’t quite get the logical flaw of your post. You started with “money is not important” to “freelancing to rich people”.

There are many millionaires/Billionaire in India, Russia and China who didn’t make their money freelancing online.

I am from Singapore where the average income if 5 times the average Chinese and 15 times that of average Indonesian. But many of the top end real estates in Singapore are owned by tycoons from these two regions.

I didn't mean to freelance your way to wealth, it's just a "jumpstart".

Yes.
Highly motivated.

And I don't want anything to be magically granted. That would ruin the fun of the game.

I will have everything that I want when I will deserve it.

Hmm. You probably have a point. I mean people get depressed and lose meaning in life because when they lose goals. People need to do something crazy at some point to make the most out of their very short life. As entrepreneurs, we should ask: Can we make that possible for them?