Living Like A Millionaire And Applying It To Your Business

I like the book "The Millionaire Next Door".  It is a book that everyone should read.  And if you want to act like a millionaire truly acts, you'll check it out from the library.  However, I've included a link to the book here in case you would like a permanent copy.  It is one of those books that you might want a permanent copy to study over and over again.

I am not going to go into great detail about what the book says, but generally millionaires live frugal lives because being a millionaire is about having a high net worth, not just having a big income.  Many millionaires make six figure incomes and more but spend very little of it, which contributes to their net worth.  They also avoid taxes by deferring their compensation when they can.  For instance, they contribute heavily to retirement plans such as 401k's and IRA's.

Millionaires can teach us a lesson about how to approach our business.  Mainly we want to get as much as we can and spend as little as we can.  There are all sorts of opportunities for business people to spend money out there, but the frugal business leader finds the same services for little or nothing.  For instance, you can buy time on an email server or you can use gmail, which is free.  You can get business cards for next to nothing if you accept an advertisement on the back.  You can have a website for free.  Yes, free.  Look at blogger.com for blogs or webs.com for web pages, or do your own search for free web sites.

New business people can fall into a trap of thinking they need stuff to do business.  What do you actually need?  Business cards maybe.  Do you need stationary with company letterhead?  Find a friend with an ink jet printer.  Do you need coffee mugs (or other promos) with your company information?  I don't think so.  Do you need catalogs, samples, or other stuff from your MLM company?  My opinion is that you don't need them until you need them.  Wait until you have a request for a catalog.  Buy one instead of 50 if possible.  Or better yet, send the the customer to the company website to look at your product.

The objective is to find ways to do business for less.  At first you may have a hard time keeping your costs down but over time you will find cheaper ways of doing things.  Just keep working in that direction.  The reason we want to keep our costs down is so that we don't run out of money before the business starts making us money.