Evolución de las Finanzas del Sector Público No Financiero

THE TRICK _{TO MONEY IS HA VINe SOMEl}

Of course even in business you'll cut people some slack from time to time. But if you overdo it, you disempower yourself. In the end your lack of financial dexterity will make you angry. You need money to fuel your quest. You have to learn to demand what you want from life, remem­ bering that no one knows what the hell you do want till you tell them. You have to accept what's coming to you and bill people properly.

Once you are completely comfortable with charging, then-and only then-will you allow yourself to do things for free. That way if you perform a kindness for another you will know that you are doing it because you want to, not because you have been manipulated into it or are maneu­ vering in the hopes of winning their affection.

The final point about charging is its great benefit to you, if you are offering a service or product, it is no fun if, in performing that service, your life becomes a negative up­ hill struggle. By charging a goodly amount for what you do and by coming from quality and excellence, you will natu­ rally, without offending anyone, get rid of the lower end of the market.

As was said, only the restricted people of the world be­ l ieve that there is not enough, believe in the "penny off" discount philosophy. It's hard to try to make it financially, working in that kind of market. Further, poor people are usually extremely negative and have a tendency to bring you down by constantly focusing on what isn't rather than on what is. By charging and doing things well you automat­ ically move up a notch or two and appeal to people who have bundles. I don't mean mega-millionaires necessarily but the more affluent upwardly mobile types. It is a fact that there are all sorts of people (millions of them) for whom price is irrelevant. What they want is energy.

That energy can be offered in beauty, service, efficiency, positivity or value. These upwardly mobile people are usu­ ally very busy. They want things quickly and efficiently and

.. .AND WHEN THEY SHOW UP, BIU 'EM

they want the product or service to work. What it costs is not a major factor in their decisions.

So when you invest your energy in things and they be­ come wonderful, there is no defined limit as to what you can charge. I don't mean that you should stiff people and overcharge. What I mean is that at the lower end of the market everyone knows exactly how many cents a carrot costs. At the upper end, the kind of people who buy endive imported from Belgium could give a damn. They just want the endive. They couldn't tell you what endive costs if their life depended on it. That is the kind of character you want to be hanging out with, as that is the kind of affluent char­ acter you want to become,

In a world where everything is so ordinary and dull and things are churned out the same way, year in and year out, if you come from a place of originality and invest energy in things, people respond. It is joy, is it not, to discover things that are special? Shops that are truly different, restaurants that actually give good service or create original food, places where people make just that little bit of extra effort-when you find such a place you are happy to pay, for you know that the quality and fun you get is worth a hundred times the junk offered in the ordinary world.

It's not hard to be original. You have only to think in terms of what people want. Take hotels: people go there to wash up, sleep and head out again. But the owners of those hotels spend the least amount of money in the bedrooms. Instead, they spend untold mil lions bUilding the lobby. It's great for the owner's ego but who sleeps in the lobby? For Christ's sake? Isn't it a fact that often on checking out, you feel disappointed, you feel that the hotel didn't quite come up to what you were expecting?

The other thing you want in a hotel is real service. You have to go to Europe or the East for that. It is not a part of the American psyche to serve-they find no joy in it. Even in the very best hotels in America the service sucks, Why?

THE TRICK TO MONEY IS HAVING SOME!

Because they don't train their staff to serve. The whole sys­ tem is designed to suit the convenience of the manage­ ment, not the customer. Containing the service is how they trim costs.

On occasions, I have had the misfortune of being booked into one of the Marriott Hotels in the US. There's one at the airport in Washington D.C. In the entrance there is a photo of '01 man Marriott himself, grinning at the suckers that are checking into his hotel. Behind the desk there's a huge sign that says something like, "We're dedicated to your service."

1 had rented one of their ballrooms for a seminar. The semi­ nar was scheduled till six in the evening, so I asked the girl at the desk if I could leave two trunks in my room as she had already told me she was not going to be needing that room until the next day. She refused. I pointed out that I was spending untold thousands at their establishment. She still refused. I mentioned that I had pulled two hundred and fifty people into their hotel, all of whom were eating lunch in their restaurant. That didn't work either. I asked her if the sign behind the desk meant anything, or was it just hiding a hole in the wall? She offered me a snotty grunt and wandered into the back room. That grunt has cost '01 man Marriott, $20-30,000 so far. We have never spent an­ other penny with that company and none of my staff stay there either.

Now if you and I were opening a hotel we'd concentrate on the stuff people really want. We wouldn't mess with a stupid sign at the desk. We would give the customers the real thing. \.ve'd spend most of our money on the rooms. The lobby would be simple and cozy but the rooms lush. Have you ever noticed how rinky-dink hotel towels are? There are never enough of them. I'd get special towels made, six foot long by three foot wide. I'd give each room eight, ten, as many as they wanted. I'd build a little closet for the towels and heat them. Also, I'd give people mono­ grammed bathrobes with the hotel's name on them and I

.. .AND WHEN THEY SHOW UP, BILL 'EM

would let the customers pinch them. People love it when they feel they are getting something for nothing. Plus every time the guy takes a shower back home, there's your ad. I'd include the cost of the robes in the price of the room.

,.,

Next, on every floor I'd put a desk and a host or hostess by the elevator. Their function would be to greet the cus­ tomers and to ensure that their every wish and whim be granted . I'd have real blankets not those brown synthetic jobs most hotels provide. Every room would have a four poster bed. What does it cost? It's only four poles and a bit of drape. But it feeJs regal-lovers especially like that stuff.

THE TRICK TO MONEY IS HAVING SOMEI

Finally, I'd get all my staff in the parking lot at dawn and I would have them jump up and down shouting, "The cus­ tomer is always right, even when they are wrong." I'd make the staff do that until they got it, even if it took an hour every morning. Those who really couldn't get it, I'd bus to the Marriott.

Life is so simple really. Think through what people want, watch what others fail to give them and provide it. Then bill 'em.

In the dollar-dance of life there is one more point that I want you to focus on, for it will become vital to you as your abundance consciousness grows. The world is rich, very rich, especially the Western democracies. Now if you are reading this book it is more than likely that you live in one of these very abundant countries. If you don't, move. To be abundant you have to hang out in dimensions that are abundant.

The point here is that people tend to focus only on what is lacking. They rarely focus on what is available or real or actually there. So for example in the United States, at this time we have about six million people on the dole. There is a work force of around a hundred and five million people, which means that there are ninety-nine million not on the dole. Those characters earn, on average, close to $20,000 per year, But many of them earn much, much more. In fact more than a million of them are millionaires.

Let us say that we take double the national average wage as our norm, i.e. $40,000, and we tot up how many people in America earn that. You would be amazed to discover that there are more fol k in the $40,000 plus range than there are on the dole. Meaning that for everyone who is out of work there are many more who are experiencing abun­ dance and actually earning double the national average.

You can apply this kind of thinking to almost any West· ern democracy you want to look at. Take England as another example. If you drew a line from Cambridge to Bristol, the

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area south of that line is just a few hundred miles square. In that hallowed spot live some of the most abundant, rich­ est people in the world. Their wealth is vast. Collectively they own a sizeable percentage of the world. Interestingly enough, they are some of the largest foreign owners of property in the United States. Now if you read the British papers you would get the impression that everything is going down the pan and that those people are having trouble rubbing two royal pennies together. That is not the truth. "Ahh but," would say the neggo's, "what about the north of England? It is so miserable and poor and wretched, and industry there is so depressed ." And I would say to them, "True." But what is positive and lovely about the north of England is that it is not that far away. A £30 bus ride gets you over the Cambridge/Bristol line and in the thick of things. Plus there isn't any reason why you can't make it anywhere. It's just that some spots are more conducive to abundance than others.

The ego/personality tends to want to plop on one spot and stay there, to be surrounded with what it knows, even if what it knows is not that pleasant. Yet one of the features of the wealthy is that they move around a lot. And in the same way as the abundance of nature is patchy, some places are green and plentiful while other places are deserts. The abundance of the world tends to congregate in specific areas. Markets come and go, values rise and fall. To be a part of that nowadays you need good communications, re­ liable information and a fast pair of legs.

Successful people are usually more lively than those who are unsuccessful . The quickening of the spirit they feel Comes out of their creativity and success detaches them from the more rigid outlook on life-it puts them in the flow. So the shakers and movers, by their very nature, are moving faster, taking more risks, investing more in the world than their less active counterparts. They have joined, so to speak. Thus they are naturally entitled to a more fluid,

THE

more free lifestyle. Not because anyone is dishing out little merit badges of good fortune, hither and thither. But be­ cause, to those who have energy, more shall be naturally added.

All you have to do is agree to join. You may have already done so. Perhaps all you need is to polish up your act and focus your i ntent. It is very likely that many of you are just a hairsbreadth away from the motherlode. Hang on. Don't lose heart. By being involved long enough and forcefully enough, you will discover that eventually the system deliv­ ers. Too many quit before the final payout.

In the meantime you are going to have to work on your energy, for at this level your currency is energy, nothing more. As you raise your energy the people show up. And by now you'll be comfortable billing 'em. It is nothing more complicated than that. As you get stronger it gets easier and easier.

Let us press on and look at energy, and how you will raise yours.

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