Selling Whilst Being Anti-Consumption
Some people have asked me variations on “How do I find niches and buying customers when I don’t really buy anything and live a minimalist life?”
A lot of people who are into online business stuff also subscribe to a minimalist philosophy that values experiences over possessions.
Firstly; On Adopting An Anti-Consumer Lifestyle (How To Be Frugal)
A lot of people want advice on how to be more frugal.
You can cut coupons. You can go without the luxuries in life. Substitute expensive for cheap and drag everything out until it can’t be used any more. Or take the other route and buy only items that will last forever.
I do both of these things: I don’t buy stuff I don’t need and when I do buy it, I buy the best. Oh, and I write niche site article reviews so that with commissions, I don’t really pay for the item. The item buys itself and then pays me to write about it.
That brings me to my major point.
A lot of people want to know how to be frugal. Yet they also want to succeed in business. These two things seem incompatible but they’re not.
Here’s how to be frugal.
Firstly, you need to stop thinking of yourself as a consumer. Think of all the ways you can make money. Stop thinking of the ways you can save money too.
Instead, think of yourself as a producing machine. As a human being, you’re capable of climbing mountains, creating works of art, saving people’s lives and creating solutions to problems that don’t even exist yet.
The shift from consumer to producer is what allows you to become anti-consumerist whilst still buying stuff, and gives you a frame of reference for what you should buy and invest in.
This is because you think of spending as an expense, items you buy as assets and you weigh them against your capacity to create. In a business sense, you’d call it generating a revenue against the cost of investment, but this can be applied to your life.
Your Lifestyle As Business Expense
Is it worth spending money on good food?
In the sense that “good food” is going to a restaurant, where you’re essentially paying someone to prepare your meal and wash the dishes afterwards… not unless you can justify the time and effort you save as financially worth more than the cost.
But in the sense that you go from eating junk food all day to spending slightly more on organic meat, fruit and vegetables… probably. This is because you’ll have improved performance, better health and you’ll be able to create more (or do more with your life.)
The investment is worth more than you spend.
Recently, I’ve been looking at buying a new computer. Mine is coming to the end of its life. Should I spend more or less?
Probably more. That’s because I spend hours a day on my computer. It generates my income and I need it to perform to a high standard. The cost is less than the return I get from buying something more powerful.
On the other hand, I regularly go through paper notepads. I could go to a store and buy some £9.99 hardback notebook with pretty swirls on the cover. But I get no more utility out of that than the £0.99 refill pads I do get. The cost isn’t justified in terms of the investment I make versus the return I’d get (which is the same no matter what paper I write on.)
Back To Business… Selling When You’re Anti-Consumption
That brings us around to the main point… how do you sell stuff or succeed in business when you’re not a consumer?
Simple. You spend money in the areas where you’re spending the most time. So whatever you make your business – or, if you’re employed and just reading this blog for fun – whatever you spend the most time in a production based capacity.
In my case, probably 90% of my spending goes on business items, subscriptions and advertising. I rarely spend money on much else, and that’s not because I don’t have the money: It’s because I don’t have the time and I’m not going to spend 90% of my money on fun things that take up 10% of my time.
If you work as a bank manager but still want to mix frugality/anti-consumption with buying stuff you need, then think about your major hobbies and the output they generate.
If you play video games… then look into real world analogues because you don’t produce anything when you play a video game. Ditto movies, TV and the like.
If you like creating art, then spend your money on art and spend the majority of your free time on art.
Once you’ve done that and you’re producing a lot of material then you will be able to decrease your consumption and spending overall with no impact on your “business” or customers.
Does it matter to anyone who buys my copywriting service whether I spend money on the latest gadgets or not? No… and your business/productive hobby is the same.
If you spend next to no money on anything but your blacksmithing business, then nobody who buys your ironwork will be any the wiser. You can talk in depth about the subject because it’s where the majority of your spending (and profit) comes from, and you produce high quality items.
Final Thoughts and Summary
It doesn’t matter if you’re a blacksmith, writer, fitness guru or independent legal expert.
If you want to learn to be frugal but find the “eat nothing but rice and noodles and live in a cardboard box” lifestyle a bit counter-productive, then do this:
- Align your hobbies with productive activities
This doesn’t have to be financially productive but it makes it easier.
- Make the switch from a consumer mindset to a productive one
- Align your spending with the productive activity (So if you like painting, tally your costs versus the production)
- Spend more time on your production
- Scale the costs so they’re always slightly less than the productive value
In this way, you’ll always get a positive return. Your spending can go up but you’ll always be producing more than you can consume.
That said… your spending will go down using this method anyway because if you’re busy producing stuff, you aren’t conspicuously spending.
But where you need to spend to ensure you produce high quality stuff, you can spend freely because you always get a positive return. Understand that to customers and to the outside world, you don’t seem like a minimalist because you’re not in the sense that the beans & rice brigade tell you to be. You are however financially autonomous and productive though.