Continuing on the ‘Money and You’ theme, Pria Masson discusses how your motivations and fears affect your goals and decisions and how they relate to money.
I recently attended a very interesting workshop on digital marketing led by a digital marketing expert, Andrea Vasconcellos. The insights shared at this workshop made me recall the small and big stuff that goes into creating, building and promoting a business. It also got me thinking about just how transferable these skills are to our personal and professional lives. With that as a background and in continuation of our ‘Money and You’ theme, this month, I discuss how your motivations and your fears affect your goals and decisions and how all this merges in with money.
Motivation
Let’s begin with the basic idea of motivation. It is what drives all our actions, whether consciously or sub-consciously. When you want to market a product, at a fundamental level, you need to address the core motivation of your audience. Let’s break it down to money.
On a personal level, that dress you really wanted, it is difficult to figure out if it is a need or a desire because you do need it for that new party you are going to. The aim of that dress, however, is what decides which bucket it sits in. If your motivation is to be noticed and being noticed allows you to build a specific connection, then it’s really an investment (however risky) and not a pure expense.
On a business level, an extra boost of Instagram ads for example, could be an expense you need to make to get new business. However, if you dig deeper and analytics tell you that the ads may make you popular, but there is no conversation of clicks into sales, then, it’s really a “nice to have” and continuing, is an ego boost, not an investment.
Fears
The apparent opposite of motivation is fear. It’s what we want to avoid the most, and it is a tricky space to navigate. A not-so-surprising number of business and financial decisions are taken to “avoid ruin” or “ensure that doesn’t happen”. That’s acting from a space of fear. And, money, rather the loss of money, is a fear the majority of people have.
So, selling to pandering to that fear, can abate your own fear of not having enough. For example, just the idea of money, brings fear in so many minds. There is hesitation to understand it and often a lack of confidence to work with it. I read an interesting statistic that only 33 percent of adults globally, are financially literate and ‘too much jargon’ was cited as a reason for not investing. That’s fear of the unknown at play and resistance to engaging with it.
If you fear money, how would you approach it confidently? How would you engage with it to make healthy financial decisions for your life or your business? Think about your fears around money, you may be surprised as to how pervasive that fear is in various decisions of your life.
If you understand your motivation and fears around money, it is the kryptonite or secret sauce that you need to supercharge your financial decisions. Marketers know these aspects of you more than you realise. It’s how social media directs their content to you. The key is, realising what is apparent in your own behaviour, only you have not seen it yet. When the picture appears, guiding yourself where you need (and want) to be, will be a much easier process. It gives you a map of how to support yourself, all you need to do is understand the language of the map.
Pria is an experienced business consultant who works as a business coach and advisor helping clients with their strategy, business plans and idea assessments. You can follow Pria at her Instagram handle
@guide_my_idea and know about her experience at www.priamasson.com
