Personal Finance: The world is a marketplace

The world is a marketplace where everybody is selling different stuff. For you to make money, you must have something you are selling in this market, something people are willing to buy and pay for, something that they need, something they cannot do without.

And you know this can be anything; rice, beans, shoes, clothes, jewelry, home appliances, just anything. In more specific manner, it can be skills like sewing, shoemaking, driving, writing, cooking, coding, barbing, and you name it. Everyone goes to the market, needing a service or goods. And you must have something to offer them in order for you to make money.

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You cannot make money unless you are selling something in this market. Of course, the only way is begging in the market. You know there are people who beg in the market, too.

When you have something to sell or offer to people in the market, you must display it for people to see. If you do not display it, and display it very beautifully, people will not know what you are selling and cannot think of buying from you. That is how the world is. The world is a marketplace. Nobody will know what you carry until you show up or show them.

And in the market, sellers call people to buy from them. You need to go out there to let people know that you are selling something, that you have something they can buy from you. In the market, sellers do not just sit in their shops waiting for someone to come buy from them. You know why? There are many people selling the same products or offering same services.

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If everyone is selling what you are selling, what can you do differently that will attract buyers, or to make them stay. That is where branding comes in. What is your USP—Unique Selling Proposition? What is that value you are offering that your other competitors are not? And how can you succinctly communicate this USP to anyone looking for what to buy? What do you think interest these buyers?

Then if you are selling, you know you must buy less. You must buy something when you have made enough profits. And what you buy should not and cannot exceed what you earn. Otherwise, you will go broke.

Shop owners do not leave their shops when the market is busy to buy something until dusk when they have made enough profit. This is to say you should be more interested in selling than buying. What you sell helps put food on the table or pay your bills, not what you buy. What you buy takes money out of your purse and makes you less rich.

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When you walk in a busy market, do you think people care about what you wear or put on? Even if they do, they soon forget what you look like. This is to say the world is too busy to care. They are interested in their own affairs. They are interested in selling their goods or buying what will be of value to them.

At the close of the market, when everybody goes home to roost, they probably only remember where they bought their goods or who rendered them services, not the kind of clothes or jewelry you put on. People only remember someone who has something valuable to offer, not someone who has something to show off.