Value

Part of being a successful person, that other people want to be around, is in them being able to obtain something of value from you. If you have nothing the other person values then there is no reason for them to approach you or to stay around you once they are in your presence. Now, in a strictly business sense, this value would be gained by purchasing something that you have that they want.

When making a sale there are several things that help determine if it is a good deal or not. Value is one of them. In order to make a profit you have to charge the customer a fair rate for the product. But more importantly in order for them to feel good about the sale, you have to provide them more in use value than you take from them in cash value.  What does this mean?

For a good number of years I have played a collectible card game called Magic the Gathering. You can buy a starter deck of 60 Magic cards for around ten dollars, with each card costing you around 17 cents. That seems like a pretty good deal. But when all is said and done you are probably not going to get a good feel for the game with only those cards. You won't have enough to make a second deck and play against some friends. You will probably get bored with the starter deck after a few plays and it will just sit somewhere collecting dust. You might get a couple of hours of enjoyment out of the starter deck and then be done with it. A person selling you a single starter deck at ten dollars is giving you good cash value but poor use value.

Now on other hand, let's say, the salesperson talks you into buying a booster box of 540 magic cards for 100 dollars. Each card now is costing you around 18 and a half cents. Not a big difference but at first it still seems like you might be getting less value out of the deal. However, with this many cards you will have the ability to make several different decks, so you can invite some friends over to play. Also you will have enough cards left over to trade some cards out for others when new ideas come to you. You can also find other people that have Magic cards and trade some of the cards you are not using for cards that they do not need. With the booster box of cards you have way more options. It will quite likely take you more time to open the cards, sort them, figure out what you got, come up with several deck ideas and build a single deck than the total amount of time you would have spent playing with the single starter deck. You could possibly get hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of this $100 investment.

Let's compare. $10 for less than 5 hours of enjoyment means paying more than $2 per hour for your entertainment. $100 for more than 200 hours of enjoyment means paying less then $0.50 per hour of entertainment.

A high use value on a thing means that what you are actually charging them is very little compared to the amount that they will use and enjoy that thing. If you want to be successful in business you must always give a person a higher use value than the cash value that you charge for the thing.

The same goes for the non-business parts of life as well. If you want others to value the time that they spend around you, you must give them more in use value than you take away from them in time spent with you. People who make this concept a regular part of their life give increase to all those around them and others are automatically drawn to them.