ZERO COST
“To make more for less effort is the constant aim of entrepreneurs and imaginative minds." - JTR
A popular way for business proprietors to avoid both the responsibility and the direct expense of employing someone, is to contract out the work involved to a third party. While relieving themselves of the burden of employer, it does not however relieve their business of cost. The enterprise is still liable for fees to the contractor. In a perfect world proprietors might wish for the contracted out service to come at zero cost too. A net zero solution!
Is that proposition as silly as it seems? Is a zero cost solution an impossible, utopian dream? Not necessarily. Such an outcome can be achieved. It depends on the imagination and business acumen of the proprietor. Here’s how :
The business owner has an employee - an accountant, for example - working in their business. They pay off the hired help and sub-contract the work to an agency. Instead of agreeing a fee with the agency they undertake to supply the agency with say, three other clients, or however many would cover the proposed cost.
Now, in their daily selling activity within their own business, they offer accountancy services as an add-on to their main line. When they acquire a client in this way, they are effectively selling the service on behalf of the accountancy firm. They are acting as a commission agent but with their remuneration coming by way of free book-keeping for themselves.
This arrangement benefits all parties.
The business proprietor enhances their sale offering to prospective clients with a value-added product or service to sell but with with no added work. Reduces their wage bill and management time, increases profit. Receives free book-keeping.
The business's clients receive added value to that of the primary goods or services they are buying
The agency receives additional clients, thereby increasing their own income and profit.
For you to apply this principle to any goods or services, to any area of your business (or indeed life), there is just one essential requirement on your part … You must possess the ability to present your solutions to clients with ease and clarity ... When you can, then the world is your oyster. This is why I regard selling to be the single most important element in an entrepreneur's arsenal. I believe it to be the one activity you must master above all others. But caution ... it's the one activity you must always keep in-house ... Do it yourself, you’re the best and only person for it.
To this day, although now a full-time author, I practice my skill in this department regularly. I can, for instance, eat free if I wish in a different restaurant each day of the month on the back of a casual consultancy service I provide to restauranteurs in the region. They gain many diners through me. Because of that I am always welcome. I simply ‘chat’ to proprietors while dining! - easy and enjoyable ‘non-work’. The restaurants promote my books - both selling them and using them as incentives just as I have outlined. All parties win.
So, you see, it’s a life skill … but one which can turn your business into fun and your enterprise into a treasure chest of lucrative income in many different and imaginative forms. You can enjoy a wonderful existence free of the pressures and responsibilities which so many entrepreneurs unwittingly weave into their enterprise. Some do it knowingly, believing in some warped way that stress and activity, maximum responsibility and buzzing around needlessly is a badge of achievement. Don’t let that be you - Make life easy ... Employ the net zero, zero cost solution!
I am Tom Riach. I live and write in the sunny south of Portugal.
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'ZERO COST' is an original copyright Tom Riach feature.
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See you there! Regards, Tom.
Comments
Time is money. It is always better when others spend time making you money. The example you use here is a good one. Most people don't earn while they eat.
Yes Dennis, I'm the only person I know of who earns while I eat. Yet the principle is ridiculously simple and there are limitless variations can be applied in all manner of ways and situations. Put it this way - Which represents greater 'real' wealth ... what I describe here or a million dollars in the bank? Once one grasps the real meaning of wealth then wealth is easily achieveable and the answer to my question obvious!
Although I don't do so regulary, I have earned while eating. In none of my eary businesses did this work well. In those businesses I was hands on, so my hands were always dirty. Truth is I prefer earning while I am sleeping.