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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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 early 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.
I'm reminded of farmer friends at the livestock market, tucking into greasy meat pies then licking their sharn clarted (Scots - look it up) fingers and not batting an eyelid. Never seemed to do them any harm - among the healthiest chiels (more Scots) I knew. I never felt time spent around these folks was wasted, on the contrary, I learned from them about life in the real world and how to live it.
One thing I found to be true, there was plenty of time to reflect while driving the tractor. While driving the tractor I learned the value of know, like, and trust. Once I was finished with the farmers fields he rented the tractor with driver (me) to other farmers who wanted something done in their fields.
This was not something he normally did. I had proven to him that I was trustworthy, and that I had his best interest at heart. It was my idea that he accepted which kept me working.
I had taken the opportunity because I wanted to be far away from a fiance who I found cheating on me. It took more time than I anticipated to get my mind right.
Normally when I saw cows I was on horseback herding them. There wasn't much time to be refecting while herding cows. Most of the time I spent herding it was cow/calf pairs. The calves had a mind of their own and my part of the job was getting them back to the herd. Actually my other function was training the horses to herd.
During those years there was either a shower in the barn or there was an outside door on the house so I would always be clean when entering the house. I did not eat with dirty hands, or a dirty body.
In the first case most of the contact was through notes written while I was eating. There was a note on the tractor seat in the morning giving me directions to the other farmers field, and what I was to do there.
Riding/training horses was something I was passionate about in my younger years. Although I did earn from training horses it was a hobby, not something I depended upon to earn.
There is a lesson here as well for those willing to learn it. The horses I trained did not belong to the rancher whose cattle I was herding. I was paid to train the horse, and paid to herd the cattle. Always look for the opportunity within an opportunity.
What a rich and wonderful life Dennis, to the full. And the wisdom and experience inherent in all you say comes free!
All this happened in less than half my life to date. Partnering in business gave me a lot of time freedom. Of course this meant there were many times I ran the business so my partner could have that time freedom as well.