Getting the very last drop of cordial from the bottle, adding a little bit if water into the washing up bottle and shaking it to see if that will give me a few more washes. I truly am tight. My friends ridicule me for it but I am not bothered, in fact I kind of like it!
I was walking to the corner shop yesterday to get some milk, on my feet were the sneakers that I purchased my first year out of University in 2001. They are the most comfortable shoes I have ever had. I have put them in the washing machine several times. I have stuck the soles back together with super glue and honestly they still look in excellent condition. I have never worn them for sport although one day they will get relegated and in fact I look forward to that day as they can then become my most comfortable running shoes of all time.
I just don’t get how we as consumers are blindly pushed into buying new updated versions or new season items. What is so different? Is there really something that is fundamental to the way that I run my life or that I do business that this new update will deliver? The sales bumf will tell you yes! That you cannot live without the new features, that you really need to have seventeen and a half shock absorbers in the soles of your shoe, or that the door of your fridge freezer should close so quietly that it registers less than 10 decibels. Ok, so I have made them up but I think you get my point!
Unless there is a practical reason for me wanting to purchase a new fridge freezer then I am not going to buy one no matter how many bells and whistles they put on it. Is my fridge freezer broken? Can it be fixed for less than the cost of a replacement and if so what would be its expected life after?
So are we becoming more advanced? Do organisations actually sit down at the design stage and say “we want to design something that will last a generation”; I don’t believe that they do! Car manufacturers spend billions and billions of dollars on redesigning their car models adding one letter or a couple of digits to the end of the name and then unleash to the public every two or three years. Yet everybody looks back at cars from the 60′s and 70′s with awe and eventually the same manufacturer goes back to the same design and enthusiasts will tell you the original was better!
So what is the point in all this? Well when I buy something, I am making a commitment to that product. With expensive products I am there for the long haul. I am not going to change when the new seasons trends come in. If the product serves my need well for a certain time period, then when that product comes to the end of its natural life I will by the new updated version, but not before. It won’t be a hard sell, I will simply walk into the shop pick up the item and go to the check out. I trust the brand, I know the product satisfies my need so it is a no brainer. That is what I want that is what being committed is all about!
I am somebody that wants something to last. Do you enter a relationship thinking you’ll see how this goes for a while and that if something better comes along you can just jump ship? Unfortunately statistics suggest that that is exactly what society does. The majority of people today enter roles of employment and after eighteen months or so realise that it is too hard work, the role is not all it’s cracked up to be, the advertised 9-5 is nothing like the actual expected working hours or simply we just get bored and want something new. Being committed is no longer part of our psyche.
Business is all about Being Committed
If you go into business you did that for a reason. You had a “why”. You saw an opportunity and you grasped it. There was a way for you to break the traditional mould, the status quo of how things were done and you took it. I look around the home business industry and the network marketing industry and I see so many people flitting from one business to the next without actually realising their goals without actually making a real effort to build their businesses and make it to the top.
Everywhere you look things are changing, people are challenging the norm. I am not saying that is a bad thing. It is not. It’s a good thing. I mean what is the point of enduring something that you do not have the passion in your belly to see through to the final chapter. But at some point the merry go round will stop and you will have to get off and commit to yourself, commit to a better future for you and your family, commit to something, because otherwise you will continue going around and around in a non stop cycle.
“There is no certainty of outcome in life, but you will never know what you are made of unless you take part.” Lord Seb. Coe
About
James Debono is a small business owner and Internet entrepreneur. James dedicates his time to helping other small business owners leverage the power of the Internet to drive business growth and positive change. Click here Join James Debono on Google+
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