George Kao answers whether one can make a lot of money authentically. He contrasts authentic (customer-focused, pull marketing, scaling caring via loyal fans and team) versus inauthentic approaches (profit-focused, push marketing using hype/manipulation). He gives a numeric sales example (1,000 monthly sales of a $100 product → $1.2M/year) and frames presence/values (now vs future) with spiritual references (Bhagavad Gita, Jesus) to argue that focusing on caring and present action leads to sustainable financial success.
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Is it possible to make a lot of money authentically? That was the question that was asked by someone and I'd love to share a couple of thoughts with you about this. So whether you want to make 100,000 a year, a million dollars a year, $10 million a year, whatever it is, how do you do it authentically? Okay, well, a couple of points. One is you can do it authentically or you can do it inauthentically, but both are possible to get there. And I'll just give you a couple of dichotomies as one way is you can focus on the value to the customer versus focusing on the profit to yourself. Most people who try to make lots of money are focused on the revenue and the profits to themselves. And what happens is they see the customer as a means to an end. The customer becomes their stepping stone toward making a lot of money versus if we focus on the customer and says how can we get to know them better and provide a service or offering that they just absolutely love and the way that it's delivered, the customer service experience is just, it's wonderful. They will naturally want to tell lots of people about it. And that's how we scale authentically, you see, versus focusing so much on the revenue and the profit. We're using people to make money. That's dangerous and it's not authentic and it's usually doesn't work anyway. Okay, second point, you to make lots of money, to make lots of money, period, you need to sell a lot of units, right? Let's say you have a hundred dollar product, one hundred dollar online course, let's say, and if you sell a thousand sales, you make a thousand sales of your online course each month. You have made $1.2 million a year, just 1,000 sales a month of your $100 online course, you're making $1.2 million a year. And then you pay your advertising costs and your team, you end up with, who knows, maybe 800,000 a year. You pay your taxes, whatever ends up with, let's say, 500,000 a year. So you still have a lot of money left. But how do you get there? You need to sell a lot of units, right? A thousand a month. Let's say you can get there by either push or pull. When you do push marketing, which is how most marketers will teach you, you will learn how to use hype. You will learn how to use scarcity and pressure and even deception and manipulation to get lots of people to buy and to buy again and again from you. And it does work. That's why so much of marketing training is out there that teach these things because it works. But can you sustain that? Will your conscience allow you to sustain it? Will you be regretful later in life? Which I've already been regretful having done some of that stuff early in my career, you know, I burned out, wish I didn't do it. No matter whatever the money I made, I wish I didn't. Okay. The other way of doing it instead of push is pull. You have a product and your marketing is so good that people naturally want to spread it. You're pulling based on the demand from the market is pulling you forward. Okay? And that's really how we scale authentically. Thirdly, as we scale, are we able to scale our caring? Because you have probably experienced businesses that started out as a one person business and like you were their only client or you are one of their few clients and they cared so much about you. And they did. And then once they got busy, once they have lots of clients now, now they don't care about any client because now they have so many clients. That's a danger. Now I'm speaking to myself as well because right now I'm in a phase where I do have to attend to a lot of people. But to scale the caring is tricky because either it means that you need to build a team that cares as much as you do. And by the way, how do we do that? We do that by building an audience that is genuine and loyal to us. When we build a fan base that are true fans, it's much easier to recruit great team members from our true fans because then they're already on board with our mission. They already have seen how we care. They've already, they're probably already emulating that kind of caring in their own life or in their work. So you, to scale your caring, you got to build a loyal and true fan base first. Who, who are based, who are connected to you based on values. Okay. And then finally, now versus the future. This is important if you're thinking about money all the time. Oh, I'm going to imagine what I could do with a million dollars a year I could give through this charity. I could support that. Cause I could go on these vacations. Where is that created? It's created in the mind. It's not created in the heart. Now you might say, well, the mind, yeah, I want to support these charities. But that's still in the future. Your ego is saying, oh, I want to have the control of being able to support this Charity, that charity. Your heart is in the present. Your heart is saying, how can I bring more love today? How can I bring more courage right now? That's what your heart is saying, right? That's what our hearts do. Our heart is very present. The heart is beating right now. Our minds are often in the future or in the past, right? So now versus future. So if you're focused on the million dollars a year, you're focused always on the future. You're very mind driven. But if you come to your heart, you will say, how can I care for my client even more today? As I write this email, as I have this meeting, even if I'm doing my bookkeeping and doing my taxes, how can I bring more joy into the moment? That's a now, that's being present. And if you are present now, you will tend to create a great future. But if you're always in the future, you don't tend to bring your presence now, which ironically does not create a great future. The spiritual traditions that you know that have stood the test of time have to have taught this to us. The Bhagavad Gita says, to action alone, do you have the right and never at all to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive instead. I'm not getting the quote quite right, but to paraphrase, the quote basically says, you are only allowed to focus on your action if you focus on the fruits. God may or may not take give you the fruits, life may or may not give you the fruits of your labor, but what you are for, guaranteed for sure you have, is this moment and what you can do in this moment. So if you focus your joy and your courage and your love and your creativity in this moment, then you tend to create good moments. And good moments tend to lead to good labors or, sorry, good fruits and good futures. Jesus said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else will be given to you. What does that mean? If I could translate that into, you know, for those of you who don't believe in Jesus, I'll translate that. Seek first your higher values and implementing that in this moment and everything else will take care of itself. Whether you are doing the boringest thing in your business or whether you're doing something intimidating and exciting and whatever, it's boring, exciting. If you bring your presence to this moment, you do it well, then the future tends to be good too. Let the future take care of itself. So how do you make lots of money authentically? You focus on being authentic and caring today and tomorrow. And every single day you focus on that. And then your future tends to take care of itself because you will build around you a bunch of people who care about you. You'll build an audience who love you. And when you have an audience who love you, that is the most secure investment because you can sell anything you want and they will trust you. Okay? So I hope this helps and any comments or questions, I'm always open to your thoughts. Take care.
