Would You Rather Cut Cost Or Go All Out To Earn More Money?
As the dust raised by the sudden fuel subsidy removal and the protests that followed it gradually settles down, entrepreneurs will be faced with two uneasy choices. One choice is to cut cost. The other one is to go all out to earn more money.
Of these two choices, only one of them has a long term benefit. But the one that has the greater benefit is the more difficult of the two choices.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur or an individual or even a government, any time you’re confronted with a slowdown in your revenue, the first thought that comes to your mind is to cut cost.
The reason for making that choice is obvious. It’s fuelled by the proverb that says a bird in hand is better than ten in the bush. That is to say if you control the money in your hand well, you can make it last for a longer period.
And that is true. You could cut out all unnecessary things down to using water to clean up instead of buying the ‘expensive’ 2-ply toilet roll that you were used to. Or, you could take your shoes with worn out soles to a neighbourhood shoe repairer to stick a new shoe sole on them.
A business owner, on the other hand, could decide to shed the weight his business is carrying. By that I mean you could let go some staff or choose to cheat on your customers by cutting back on the quality of your product or service to save cost.
The decision to take these and other actions like them is very easy. But let me caution you, don’t take it too far or it will lead you to bankruptcy.
How do I mean?
Well, if you think deeply about what you are doing by focusing on cost cutting only, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll discover that your business will be shrinking in size instead of growing and expanding. It will only be a question of time before you get to a point where you have nothing left to cut.
This is why the better one of the two choices is to step back a bit from what you have been doing and take a critical look at your business. You’ll discover other ways through which you could have been earning more money in your business that you had over-looked and go for them.
Let me put it in another way. Surely, it’s a good thing to eliminate certain frivolous expenses in your personal and business expenditures.
But don’t stop there. Once you have done away with items that would not affect the quality of your excellent offerings to your customers, you should focus single-mindedly at finding ways of earning more money in that business.
For example, some business owners make the mistake of cutting down on their advertising budget at the first sign of slowdown in their revenue. That is a wrong move unless you don’t understand why you were advertising in the first place.
Advertisement is a sales driver. I’m not referring to adverts that are merely designed to create awareness for a product or service. That is a waste of money at times like this. I’m referring to aggressive adverts that motivate consumers to reach out for your products and put money in your bank account like the ones being promoted by the GSM Networks.
Remember, just like you, consumers are also looking for ways of cutting costs. So, this is the time that you need to remind them more about your own product or service and why they should include what you’re selling on their ‘must buy’ list.
If the name of your product is not on their mind when they are drawing up that list, then you and your business are slowly but surely heading for preventable disaster.
The same goes for an individual. It will be a very foolish thing to do to cut back on self improvement at times like this. Self development –– that is taking courses and attending seminars that are guaranteed to empower you to earn more money –– should be a priority for anyone who wants to take charge of their financial future right now.
It should never cross the mind of anyone who has his eyes set at having more than enough down the road, to stop his investment in programmes that will place the required knowledge to achieve that goal in his hands.
If you are such a person reading this article, here are two wonderful opportunities for you. Choose either of the two or both of them, you can never go wrong.
The first opportunity is absolutely FREE. And it could not have come your way at a better time.
As you probably know, if you have been reading SuccessDigest for some time, I have a long list of protégés; some of whom were recently invited to our platform to share their proprietary knowledge with members of our community in a two-week programme tagged November Special.
What you probably don’t know is that some of these brilliant, upwardly mobile young Nigerians are what one of them calls, serial entrepreneurs. That is, they have more than one thriving business they are managing.
On a closer check on their business profile, I was pleasantly surprised that quite a good number of them were into Real Estate business. Unless you are not like me, you’ve always thought you must have stacks of Ghana Must Go! bags loaded with naira in order for you to go into Real Estate business.
But my protégés dismissed that notion as pure illusion. “It doesn’t have to be so,” they all assured me.
Okay, okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t even told you who these protégés are. Oluwasanmi Akindipe was the first to get into the game, although I’m not 100% sure about that. And I think Fisayo Akinlolu jumped in next, to be followed by Akin Alabi [not surprisingly so because Fisayo and Akin are long-time friends]; with Samson Olatunde bringing up the rear.
These four, as well as Sunny Elem, another protégé of mine who is also into the business, but will not be available for this seminar, are all a branch of one tree: a man called Debo Adejana.
A well-respected SuccessDigest columnist, Debo’s passion to teach others how to succeed in Real Estate business can only be matched by the zeal of a missionary.
These five real estate gurus –– Debo Adejana, Oluwasanmi Akindipe, Fisayo Akinlolu, Akin Alabi and Samson Olatunde –– have agreed to share their secret of success in the business with our readers in our first monthly Absolutely FREE Seminar in 2012 taking place on Thursday, February 16, 2012.
The venue is SADC, 36 Esuola Street, Off Ago Palace Way, Okota, Isolo, Lagos. The seminar takes off at 10am but you must take your seat at 9.00am prompt.
Other details about this seminar, including how you will pre-register for you to secure a seat, will be published on Thursday this week.
But here’s an important thing I want you to know. If you or your friend is considering going back to the village because things have suddenly become too expensive in the city where you are currently residing, I want you to shelve that plan for now and give my protégés a chance to show you how to raise your head above the water in these austere season by jumping into the real estate business following in their footsteps.
Yes, they were not money bags when they started. And they have assured me that they would show you all their secrets.
That is for the FREE seminar.
The second opportunity will cost you money. I’m talking about our first Implementation Course otherwise known as Certified Netpreneur Course [please refer to last Monday’s edition of SuccessDigest or see coming Thursday’s edition for more information on the New CNC Model].
Have you heard about Kindle Publishing? Maybe you have. But do you realize that that is where Internet information marketers are raking in quick cash right now? This is just becoming an open secret on the Internet!
You will be hearing a lot more about Kindle Publishing in the weeks and months ahead. Pastor Chinedum Azuh will flag it off at SADC with a one-day seminar that will cost you N3,000 only on Friday, February 10, 2012. [See our comprehensive seminar schedule for the years for details].
And later on in the month, our first Implementation Course for the year will be on Kindle Publishing. And what is the difference, you ask? I’ll explain it to you in detail next week.
Until then have a great week!
