Dollars Follow Value

If you wake up in the morning and ask yourself “How can I make more money today,” this article is for you. Our whole lives we have been trained incorrectly. The first time I heard the words “Dollars Follow Value,” it kept me up at night. This is about a shift in inward thinking.

The basic concept is that every dime that you earn will come out of someone else’s bank account. That means that you are ultimately trying to find a way to get more people to give you more money. That poses the question: “Why do people give you money?” The answer has to do with value and exchange.

Value is only created when exchanges are made. If I give you a candy bar and you give me one dollar we have made an exchange. Here is the key concept. The existing amount of material objects has not changed. There is still one candy bar and one dollar in the room, but both of us are richer than before. To you the candy bar was worth more than one dollar which made the trade worth it. To me the candy bar was worth less than one dollar. We both win and value is created.

So in the morning when you wake us you might start asking yourself, “How can I create more value for more people?” When deciding what business you want to go into or how to be more profitable at your current business, consider these questions:

1. What is the single product or service that I can perform to create the most amount of value for someone?
2. Who are the people that will see the most value in that product or service?
3. How can that service or product be quantified in terms of the dollar? Or, in other words; how much is that product or service worth to someone else?
4. How do I “market” that product to the highest amount of people to whom it will create value?

If you will focus on creating value in the lives of others you will see significant results not just in your financial portfolio but also in your relationships, which without any doubt hold far greater value to you than any amount of money ever could. Create value in the lives of others and dollars will value as a simple by-product.

Jacob S. Paulsen