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The Item That Will Change Your Life

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Why is it that we can hear that promise again and again for different products, yet we still perk our ears up to find out what it is that is being advertised and if it really will change our life? We all want the magic cure to the inconveniences we face in life but does that really exist, and if it does, how much is it worth?

Enter the world of salesmen and “As Seen on TV” products. You’ve seen the commercials: “Have you ever had this happen to you? (insert annoying occurrence here) Well, then you need (insert product being sold). And you can get it for only $19.95!” (and why, exactly, are all those products $19.95?)

What this kind of advertising does is point out a tiny inconvenience that you never even realized before, but now want fixed. I never realized the difficulty I had putting up pictures on the wall until I saw the ad for the Hercules Hooks. They made it look so easy and convenient! I’m ashamed to say that I ordered those Hercules Hooks and ended up paying $10 in shipping for them in addition to the sales price. I’m even more ashamed to say (but not really surprised) that they are sitting in a drawer somewhere in my house unused because they didn’t work well.

It’s all advertising. They tell you why you need the product and it if they convince you it doesn’t seem to matter how much it costs because “it’s so worth it.” And this isn’t only for “As Seen On TV” products either (although they seem to be the pinnacle of the whole epidemic). The other night I went to an at home demonstration for a company that sells kitchen tools and accessories. This is something I wanted to go to because I wanted to purchase a few of their products, so I wasn’t roped into it by any means.

The consultant was very nice and chipper and actually did a pretty good job on selling the items by showing how handy they were while cooking a meal. I had to laugh at the concept of the whole thing though. At one point the product being described was a pitcher that had a built in mixer and the selling point was that it was a lot easier to use than stirring manually with your hand and spilling juice all over the counter. This made me chuckle a little bit because a) I’ve never spilled juice all over the counter while mixing it and b) stirring juice with a spoon isn’t very difficult. Now granted, I hardly ever make juice so spending $30 on a product like this wouldn’t make sense for me. But even if I did make juice a lot, I think I would save the $30 and consider it payment for the work of manually stirring my juice. I’ve never really thought about all the “work” that goes into stirring juice until that night.

Also on display was a really nice knife that apparently made cutting vegetables and different things extremely easy. We were told that the professional chefs on TV only looked like they were so good at chopping because they had a nice knife and I too could look like a TV chef if I bought this $70 knife. I’m sure that was a wonderful knife, but no knife, or any other item of combination thereof, will make me look like a TV chef. Cooking’s not really my thing and I’m sure I wouldn’t do that knife justice.

There were many other products described that night that promised to make cooking simpler, easier and more convenient. Now I don’t doubt that those products would do that and I did actually end up purchasing a few lower priced items, but I wouldn’t consider most cooking conveniences worth spending the money they were charging for some of these items. This has a lot to do with my lack of passion for being in the kitchen and cooking, but it also has to do with the fact that I’m willing to deal with inconveniences to save money.

You can’t get rid of inconveniences in life and they have to be dealt with. Cleaning my house is pretty inconvenient but I’d rather do it myself and save the expense of hiring a maid. I can clean my house and invest the would-be maid’s salary. Maybe it’s my frugal nature or my passion for sacrificing and saving and investing more early on in life, but there are just some inconveniences I’m willing to deal with in life.

So the next time a product promises to change your life, step back a minute and do a true evaluation before getting suckered in. There is a good chance that, even with all the promises and the $19.95 price, it’s not going to.

Know Your Personal Business Strategy

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business strategy

Successful businesses spend a lot of time planning – creating a business model, a business plan, a strategy, and a mission statement. They want to define their main purpose and goals partly so that everyone in the company can stay focused on the reason for their work and not get distracted by other worthy but non-related tasks.

A new business owner will make a lot of decisions long before making his or her first transaction – will the business provide products or services (or both)? If so, which ones? Once the business is set on selling widgets, will the company concentrate on selling a lot of widgets at low prices or a few at a higher price?

Individuals can benefit from thinking through such details for their spending as well. Knowing yourself can help improve your financial condition. For instance, would you rather spend money on objects or experiences? I remember a conversation with a friend in college who didn’t understand why I always wanted to go on road trips. “I’d rather spend my money on something I can keep,” she said. I replied that I was happy to keep the memories.

When you do buy products, assuming you have a limited amount of money (as we all do), would you prefer too buy a lot of things for lower prices or a few things for higher prices? I remember another conversation I had with another friend, this time during my high school years. We had a great opportunity to go on a band and choir trip through Europe, during which I bought many souvenirs: overpriced t-shirts from the streets of Paris, small plastic dolls from each country we visited, and lots of Toblerone chocolate. Meanwhile, she purchased an expensive piece of Delftware from the factory in the Netherlands. Being two years my senior, she told me that when she was younger, she, too, bought a lot of small, cheap things, but her taste had since matured and she now saved her money to buy something bigger and nicer. Maybe I haven’t yet matured since I still tend to buy several less expensive items (albeit different ones!) rather than a few costly ones.

I have digressed a bit, but my point is that I know I generally prefer to spend money on experiences (or services) over things and several inexpensive items over a few expensive items. My friends knew that they preferred tangible things and a few high-end items, respectively. By knowing our preferences – our personal business strategies, for lack of a better term – we can benefit in several ways.

First, we can make spending priorities. Working with a limited amount of money, I know that I will have to save money by buying less stuff if I want to be able to travel or to hire someone to do some work for me so that I can spend more time making memories with my kids at home. My college friend knew that she would have to miss out on several road trips so that she could buy some of the things she wanted for her dorm room. Knowing these priorities can help us keep focused on our saving goals when we are faced with the opportunity to spend money on something that’s not a priority to us.

Second, we can know our weaknesses. I recognize that the little things I like to buy can add up. If I need to cut back on spending for whatever reason, I can focus on buying fewer things, particularly things I don’t really need. Likewise, my friend whose taste was more refined than mine, even in high school, might have to start shopping at discount stores when money gets tight. If she is careful about saving money on things whose quality doesn’t vary much, she may still be able to afford to buy a few pricier things she loves.

Consumers trying to get a grasp on their spending can follow business examples even more closely by creating personal business plans that cover topics like, “Where will I focus my shopping time – high-end shops or discount stores?” (as businesses ask, “To what type of consumers will market my goods?”) and “Who in the family will pay the bills, file taxes, choose investments, and make spending decisions in each area?” (questions that are similar to business organizational chart). And of course, both businesses and individuals benefit from setting specific financial goals and planning specific ways to meet those goals. Giving up one thing (maybe a taste of Toblerone from the grocery store) is much easier when you know you’re saving for another (perhaps a trip to Switzerland).

Image courtesy of Alex Osterwalder