It's 1st Jan, 2011. I am writing this blog to share with everyone a concept that I have been researching for the last five years. It is called the Business Model of Life.
I firmly believe that if you want to be successful in life, you have to run your life like a business.
How often have you heard this statement: “It’s just business, nothing personal”. What if I told you that it IS personal as it concerns YOUR BUSINESS – because “Your life is your business”. Nobody else can run it except you!
Whether you are conscious of it or not, the life of each and every one of us revolves around some sort of business-related activity, and how you successfully conduct and handle these transactions will determine your own success. I call this the Business of Life.
The Cambridge dictionary defines a business as “the activity of buying and selling goods and services”. Even our everyday language is filled with business talk or metaphors. Examples are: “You should invest some time in …”, “What was your pitch to him?”, “Did he buy your reasoning?”, “try negotiating with him”, “Why didn’t you sell him your idea?”
The fact is that many tasks we perform in our lives are akin to business transactions - even outside our work place. We get paid in kind or cash in return for doing something or offering a service – whether we are at home or school.
At home, parents invest in the future of their children in the hope they can give them a better life. They hope to get rewarded with good returns when their children grow up and become successful, allowing them to retire comfortably.
At school, you earn good grades if you study hard. Getting poor results is the consequence of a poor performance in examinations - which simply means lack of preparation. You get what you deserve. The more time you invest in studying, the better the results.
Life Revolves Around Business Transactions
Yes, life revolves around business transactions such that to get something, we must give or offer something in the first place that is of value. Sometimes what we get does not meet our expectations and so, we get disgruntled or unhappy. Other times, we get more than what we bargained for.
This is even more evident in our working lives. At work, you get paid what you are worth. What you are worth is the result of your performance, academic and professional qualifications, experience and competency as well as your employer’s perception of your contribution and value.
In fact, you are getting paid for offering a service to your employer or customers whether you are a doctor, lawyer, engineer, businessman or teacher. That means that YOU are your own business. What you offer as a person and get paid for are the products and services that you own, and you alone will profit directly from it. You alone decide what this is and what value it can bring to your customers – in this case, it’s your employer.
There was even a newspaper report that suggests that one can put a business value on the household chores which housewives provide. According to a poll of 4,000 housewives, the average mum works for nearly nine hours a day every day. If she were to be employed doing these same household errands, the amount would be almost £30,000 a year when the average annual UK wage is £23,000.
The business of being you is not something people often think about. The conventional thinking is that a business refers to a formal business entity - sole proprietorship, private business or public-listed company.
YOU are the Business
But stop for a moment and reflect. You are currently an employee to the company you work for - big or small. Now what if tomorrow, you decide to start your own business and ask your same employer to hire your services, offering the same services you provided as an employee. This could happen if you are a consultant, an engineer, a lawyer, a PR specialist, or a teacher. It is still the same you, except you are not being paid as an employee any more. It is now your business entity that is transacting with the company you worked for. Nothing has changed except how the transaction is being recorded.
Get the idea? YOU are the business.
Throughout the year, I am going to share with you business and marketing concepts that can be applied to your own life - and that if you apply these concepts (as I have), you will have an edge over others.
Yes, quite a few writers have applied business metaphors in their concepts of wealth creation. Perhaps the most popular would be Robert Kiyosaki who teaches about the importance of understanding the business concept of cash-flow and knowing the difference between assets and liabilities, which are critical terms in finance. You may also have heard about the marketing concept of branding being applied to a person especially by HR experts or those coaching on personal development. Don't worry if you have not heard about these writers - I will explain more later.
What I am advocating is not reinventing the wheel but literally applying the world of business and demonstrating its relevance as a powerful way to being successful in life, while leveraging on concepts that are already there.The same factors that make a business successful or a failure are the same reasons that make a difference whether you make it or break it in life!
So start thinking about the business model you want to adopt in life. According to Wikipedia, a business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value - economic, social, or other forms of value.
What's your business model in life?
- Are you a one-product company or an all-in-one business?
- Is your life's business based on a low-cost model or do you deliver high-value professional services?
- Is your basic business model revolve around making yourself successful through a direct sales model where you sell direct to your customers (your boss or management), or do you rely on distributors (that is, others to do it for you)?
- Have you adopted a "bricks and clicks" model, where you make money not just through "bricks" (offline/traditional business) but also though "clicks" where you also earn supplementary income online?
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