How to Work Hard and Stay Poor

If you want to work hard and stay poor, I’ve got a simple proven formula for you. I know it’s proven, because I see countless people using it every day in the business world.

What? You don’t want to work hard and stay poor? I don’t blame you. It doesn’t sound appealing. Yet, so many aspiring entrepreneurs do it.

The Wal-Mart Attitude

It seems that many would-be entrepreneurs have adopted a Wal-Mart attitude. They want to give a lot and charge little.

The problem is they aren’t Wal-Mart. They don’t have the volume, the distribution lines and so forth. And that’s where the problem comes in.

Trapped in A Bubble

I’ve quietly observed these people from afar, and I’ve noticed one trait most of them have. They tend to latch onto a business forum and/or community and begin to think that the community is the entire business world.

This leads to many problems as you might imagine. They begin to operate like others in the community—adopting the pricing structure and practices of the internal market.

Before too long, they are working harder than most and making a fraction of the income.

So, What’s the Formula?

It’s a pretty simple formula to follow.

Hard work + charging/earning too little + repetition = one hard-working poor person

If you want to become a hard-working poor person, just do the above. I see many people doing the above, and their rationale is that they’ll change when the “big break” comes. Unfortunately, it never does.

In sports, there’s a popular saying that talks about “giving yourself a chance to win.” In business, you’ve got to give yourself a chance to make money.

Classic Example

There’s a service out there that will sell ads on your site. It sounds like a nice idea. However, this service charges a 50% commission. Still like the idea?

Plug this into the formula, because it’s a prime example of what not to do.
Before I continue, I want to point out that I use a service like this for some of my ads. However, their 50% plan is a serious upgrade. I don’t use it. Instead, I use their basic 25% commission service.

Now, let’s think for a minute. I can sell half as much advertising as someone using a 50% commission service and make the same amount—and I’ve still got space to sell.

The service I’m talking about doesn’t have any options. It’s 50% or it’s nothing. I’d like the NY Steak with a side of nothing please.

How to Capitalize

I need to be honest. I’m a capitalist. I love people who charge too little and work too hard for products and services that I need, because I tend to make money from them. And yes, we’ve all done it at some point.

Whether it’s the site owner charging peanuts for advertising, the webmaster charging next to nothing for services or someone doing too much for too little, there’s money to be made.

If you take time to venture into a few business/webmaster communities, you just might find some ridiculous deals.

Misconception

I don’t want you to think that I’m saying if you don’t always charge top dollar, you are lost. I’m not saying that at all.

What I’m talking about would be the equivalent of charging $3 for a product/service that can and should sell for $30.

If you don’t want to be an extra-hard-working-poor business owner, remember this formula, and try not to follow it.