Saving Money and Accumulating Wealth: You, Incorporated


Here, we will make an imaginative leap into the realm of ideas. We are going to imagine ourselves not as people but instead as businesses. For those of you familiar with business jargon and characteristics this should be relatively easy. For others it may be more difficult. However, if you take the time to understand the concept you will surely gain some useful insight into your own life.

The first think we would recognize about you, as a business would be your share price. The share price of a business is related to its financial strength and its prospects for the future. Can you imagine how someone might evaluate your present financial situation and your prospects for the future? Would you be a “hot stock” or would you be a “bottom dweller”? Would you be a value oriented investment or a blue chip? It all depends on what the investors deem the merits and the liabilities of the way you conduct yourself in the business of life. Let’s think about this further.

Let’s talk about certain important aspects of each and every business. These aspects are marketing, research and development, management and sales. These are not only sound ways to evaluate a business but they are also sound ways to evaluate a life.

Marketing is the way a company gets its message out into the world and how the consumers perceive the value of the product the company is trying to sell. Think of all of your talents and skills as the package you are trying to sell. Essentially you place yourself out there on the free market of life and you receive in return compensation in the form of a job, friends and family and respect. What would you say the evaluation has been of your worth considering the salary and income you now receive? What would you say the evaluation has been in terms of what you are receiving in the form of relationships with other people and respect? Do you think you are not getting what you feel you deserve? If so, then think about it from a marketing perspective. Perhaps you are not advertising yourself well enough or perhaps the consumer is not as aware as they should be of your inherent value. Think about all of the ways you can evaluate your life from the perspective of marketing and see what insight develops as a result.

Research and development is where companies create their new products. In terms of your life it would be the education you are undergoing or the growth you are experiencing as an individual or of latent talents that you have yet to fully realize. For example, if you have a talent for writing and have been working for many years to learn the craft of a novelist then it could be said that this increases your market value because of the potential for a big payoff in the future when this talent is fully realized. Consider other aspects of research and development and how they might apply to your life.

Management is the way a company conducts itself and functions in the world on a day-to-day basis. Management is essentially about discipline. A company without discipline is a company waiting to fail. The same could be said about life. How are you managing your life? What are you doing on a day-to-day basis to increase your value in the world and to the people around you? Do you think that a change of management might be in order? Consider the ways management has contributed to the success and to the failures you have experienced in life.

Lastly we need to consider the sales part of the organization called you. No matter how good the marketing is for a product nothing will happen if the sales force doesn’t actively go after the sale and entice the customer to make a purchase. We can see this illustrated in life in the example of an individual who has the degree and the right combination of intelligence and social charm to be a success but yet never send off his resume or fails to go to the job interviews. A sale is the direct communication that takes place between the company and the consumer. The same problem would be illustrated in the case of a man who women find generally attractive but yet never has a date because he fails to get the nerve up to ask anyone out. Sales must be a part of any company including the company called you. Without it nothing of value will ever be achieved. Think about the impact selling yourself has had in the successes and failures you have experienced in life.

Categories Financial Planning, Investing and Financial Planning, Saving Money
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