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Running Around
My primary job these days has been household chauffeur. My kids have a busy schedule and lots of places to be. That’s good. I’m glad they’re involved in positive things.
Running Behind
Unfortunately, with the very busy schedule I’ve fallen a bit behind on my video release targets. Add to that the soul-sucking cold I had this weekend, and I’m well behind my anticipated release schedule. Fortunately, I felt much better yesterday and was able to do quite a bit of catch-up work. Also a bit of good fortune is that my weekends tend to be a bit less busy and I can use that extra free time to get caught up.
Remaining Non-Numbered Rules
Always get somebody else to do the heavy lifting
That’s fine for the little Ferengi. They’re not really designed for heavy lifting. In the real world, there’s something to be said for working to your own strengths. Whatever you’re not good at, you should seriously think about outsourcing. At first, you need to wear all the hats you can in order to accommodate a minimal start-up budget. However, in order to expand your business you need to outsource your weaknesses. Eventually, it’s been recommended that you outsource everything and anything that you can so you can sit back and be the mogul. That seems a bit Tom Sawyer’s Fence Painting to me. I guess it’s the “boss” life, but I’m thinking that if you really enjoy doing something you should probably retain ownership of that. If you just want to sit back and be the boss, you should probably do that from the offset.
Never get into anything you can’t get out of
Easier said than done. Be that as it may, there are some things that you just need to stay away from like timeshares, cults and jail. Whenever you’re considering a course of action, be sure that you know all of the possible outcomes. Particularly in the make money online world, people will promote outdated techniques and black hat behaviors that will likely get you banned from some of your favorite platforms, affiliate programs or even physical locations. Check your terms of service against the latest and greatest magic button. There are a variety of products out there that are known as “jackers” of one kind or another. Sounds great. Riding coattails to easy profits. Problem is that it’s reputation theft and it’s not worth the price of entry. No matter who’s promoting it and saying how easy and cool it is, RUN! Run the other way and delete it from your mind. Beware the easy path to riches.
A man is only worth the sum of his possessions
This one was cited by the Ferengi who invaded Captain Archer’s Enterprise, NX-01. They didn’t cite a rule number, so it’s here among the errata. I suppose this is great if you’re an Egyptian Pharoh, a Viking Prince or a Kurgan Warlord but it’s not so good for us nowadays. There’s a lot more to life than dying with a bunch of stuff. You literally cannot take it with you unless you’re going to have it in the tomb with you like an Egyptian mummy. Your worth in this world is the sum of the good you can and have done for others. The stories you leave behind by the people you have impacted for good or for ill is your final worth. We don’t meet with the Holy Exchequer or bid for our next lives like the Ferengi do.
An angry man is an enemy, and a satisfied man is an ally
As customers go, they couldn’t be more spot on. This is why it’s good to scare the wrong people away with your sales copy. “This is for…” are the most powerful words you can bequeath to your potential customers. If you’re selling something with a specific customer in mind, you want to attract that customer and repel those who are not. It’s better to have a passionate fan than it is to have a ho-hum casual buyer. The profits spend the same, but the passionate fan will happily come back for more. The ho-hum guy gives you a false sense of security.
The less employees know about the cash flow, the smaller the share they can demand
It may be true, but it’s also really sleazy. Go figure the Ferengi would cite it as a core principle of business. This is also very 80s. The age when management started raiding pensions and switching to HMOs in order to maximize their apparent earnings for the company in order to be rewarded in actual personal earnings was the age in which the Ferengi were born. The Ferengi were a reflection of the selfish Me Generation jerkwads who ripped off their employees in order to jack up their perceived value to the corporation. We haven’t quite recovered from that. The “kinder, gentler” decade that succeeded it simply wrapped the jackassery in soft language to make it seem like things had improved without actually having done so. By the end of that “kinder, gentler” decade, it had become enshrined as “how stuff is done”. Can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Man up and play with the big boys. Be a throat-cutting hedge fund billionaire until the next rabid weasel comes along and leaves you out on Skid Row or until you’re so wrapped up in your greed and lust for power that you just have a stroke and die at your trading station. Yeah, that’s something to strive for. Eegads, is it any wonder people want to leave the Rat Race behind?
Only a fool passes up a business opportunity
All business opportunities are not cut from the same cloth. Also, it’s best not to split your attention. It’s fine to expand your merchandise or service offerings as long as they’re logically linked to what your primary offerings are. There’s no point in being a chef-musician-accountant-lawyer. You might be that over the span of decades by switching careers, but certainly not at once. Very few people have the mental capacity to be good at all of those disparate things. Figure out what you’re good at and look for opportunities within that realm. The grass is not greener so there’s no point in straddling a bunch of fences.
The more time they take deciding, the more money they will spend
Maybe, maybe not. Certainly there’s an advantage to letting people browse. Nobody likes to be rushed, badgered or sold to. They sure do love to shop. Letting people set their own pace is great in retail, but it’s more nerve-wracking online. That’s why it’s crucial to get them on an email list. When you have them on your email list, you can keep providing them great value and lots of opportunities to buy whatever it is you’re offering. One and done sales are great when you’re not selling anything at all, but having steady customers who enjoy what you have to offer is far better. The beauty of email marketing is that you have the ability to maintain that communication with folks who at least theoretically want what you have.
The Ferengi might be on to something with this one,
so it’s a great way to end our study of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this walk-through of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. At least I’ve caught up to something around here. I’ve got to crack on and get my videos back on track. Luckily, today is a fairly slow day so I should be able to make a lot of headway.