The Purpose of Cash

2023 was a wild year.

Our client rosters span the entire world with clients in eCommerce, content production, consulting, brick & mortar, etc etc… and while there was indeed growth happening in 2023 — it was hard won.

Numero uno, you have about 6 months to strap in for elections. If you do business in the USA, it’s going to be a psychopathic conglomerate of distractions. There are ways to use this to your advantage — I’m running an event here in a few weeks where my team will be sharing; but a major key here is to get momentum earlier rather than later.

Cost of money, as in “interest rates.” Soon, the USA ‘interest’ budget (money we pay on the money we’ve borrowed & spent) will rival the entire country’s defense budget. The way to fix this is to improve domestic output.

The FED cannot just buy up assets and inject new money into the system without resetting inflation back to where it was 2 years ago… many think rates are about to drop, which would be nice, but that leaves the purchasing power of money in limbo. The only fix here, as a business owner, is to make your products easier to access for more people.

Data is becoming extinct… we are “drowning” in data — the problem: most of it is unreliable. People do not want to be tracked, followed, or manipulated using their own data. Social media era brought in a wave of easy data-collection. It was so easy, that anyone could do it. Now, we guard our data (and our opinions) like we know someone will one day use it against us.

If you don’t have data you can’t predict the market.

The fix is to build relationships and demonstrate (through consistency) that you are an advocate of your market. When all you do is brag about revenue records, you’re essentially bragging that your market is just a means to an end. Cut it out and demonstrate some actual value.

“The only asset that can be kept safe from every threat and made to appreciate in value year after year is the relationship you have with your customers.” – Dan Kennedy

Fatigue is an equalizer, and that is both good news & bad news. The world is tired. War, recession, election, constant news cycles all highlighting the worst of civilization — all this after a two year “Covid famine” where everything was up in the air… what do you do when you are tired?

For most of us, the answer is “Nothing.” We move slower, are less motivated and less excitable. But the future belongs to the enthusiastic, and the world is entering a very exciting period in history.

So what’s the solution? Here are some thoughts:

People buy your product, as opposed to someone else’s, when you offer them something:

• Faster (speed to result)
• Better (quality)
• Cheaper
• Safer (more secured)
• _______________

Or… when they just LIKE you more.

Personality is now a legitimate competitive advantage. Elon Musk built Tesla off his personality. Granted, the car was good but not that good — not in the beginning. Now Tesla is the greatest daily driver in the world (I’ve had 5 of them). But it didn’t start by being a “better quality” product — it started by having a brand personality.

How you charge is important because it changes the volume of your business (hate to use this example again, but the recent discounts to Tesla vehicles propped up the EV manufacturer during extreme expense cutting; all other car manufacturers are down). But pricing also changes your cash conversion cycles.

The purpose of cash is to CREATE more cash. Your assets turn into revenues which turn into profits/earnings. Those earnings are used to create more assets which turn into revenues which turn into profits/earnings. Again and again the loop should continue.

If you run out of cash, in a high interest rate environment, you are done.

Profits are not king — cash is king.

You should be tinkering often.

What can you invent, add on, layer in, and otherwise create new value for your customers? People don’t cancel good services unless they’re not aware how good the service is.

I talk all the time about the validity and integrity of what we’re building.

My main firm, The Wealthy Consultant, runs the premier peer group for consultants & trainers in the world. We have playbooks ranging from team structure, org charts, offer development, events & workshops (how to run them and how to monetize them), books & publishing, etc…

There is no group like it in the world.

Our clients know it (because they stick around) and our market knows it (because we talk about it).

This year I’ll publish two new books (one in July, one in October) and my consulting firm will publish two separate ones (on in February, one in December). Arena, my flagship performance coaching institute is releasing a comprehensive certification on belief structure & identity-enhancement (10 hours & hundreds of pages of curriculum) this year.

This, on top of the programs and products we are already pumping into the market.

Everything is new and getting newer all the time — keep up or fall behind.

(P.S. if reading this wears you out, please keep in mind there is no such thing as a business model that needs no enhancement… not software, housing, etc — all models require improvement & updates)