What Do Chocolate, Internet Marketing, And Money Have In Common?

I have it mind to offer some of those friends I’ve encountered since entering the Internet marketing arena an unusual joint venture, but I’m in two minds about it.

The thing is the way I would prefer to make this venture work is to give  a limited number of people access to something valuable, and to which they can contribute and profit substantially. This isn’t some dumb e-book, or give-away product but and extremely valuable resource that others will be eager to purchase.

By joining me in this Joint Venture not only can people increase their own credibility and brand image they can also receive help to build their businesses in a number of ways that I don’t want to specify here.

Now the thing is my wife thinks I’ve finally gone off my rocker. She always suspected as much and now I’m hard pressed to prevent her calling for the boys in white coats.

“It’s easier to sell dollar bills for fifty cents than to give them away”, she says. Moreover there’s quite a lot of experimental data that suggests that when you give someone something valuable they tend to think it’s worthless.

Certainly when I practiced as a psychotherapist people who paid my full fee tended to arrive on time, act on suggestions, took initiatives and frequently recommended me.

Others, who had financial difficulties, so they claimed, were prone to arriving up to twenty-five minutes late, sometimes cancelled their appointments at the very last minute, tended to lack initiative except when it came to spending money elsewhere on unscheduled treats such as holidays financed with credit.

It was also the case that those same people were the ones who thought that going to see a therapist would miraculously make their problems vanish without them having to take any action.

Economists view money as no more than an exchange of tokens that enables life to flow with less effort than, for example, if you had to trade a cow to obtain an item of furniture, or exchange your wristwatch for a tank of petrol.

But psychologists know that money stirs up people in unexpected ways. Some people suffer with a Scrooge like meanness and hoard their funds. These people can never get enough money. Others cannot keep money even when they have stacks of it like Win Win Win Viv Nicholson who won the pools twice and lost every penny she won. Her life story was even made into a successful West End musical that ran for over 2 years from 1998 - 2000 and starred Barbara Dickson.

There’s some evidence that people who give money to good causes tend to be happier than those who spend their wealth on themselves.

Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia surveyed a sample of more than 600, or so, Americans of both genders. Whilst people spent at least ten times as much on themselves as on others analysis showed that making donations significantly raised peoples’ happiness level, whereas personal spending had little, or no, long term effect.

Kathleen Vohs from the department of marketing at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, found that words connected to money affect people’s performance levels.

By splitting a group into two samples and asking one group to analyse documents with money related words in them, and the other to read documents about other subjects it was possible to determine that people reading money words will work longer and harder before asking for help.

Maybe, to some extent, this goes some way to explaining how, and why, the Internet marketing crowd get pulled into those long sales letters about earning huge wads of cash? Man they’re drugs. The dollar signs and hundred dollar bills just make some people salivate. Reading the sales letter gives them a fix, and pressing the ‘But It Now’ button is the equivillent of ‘mainlining’.

In an article written by Mark Buchanan in New Scientist, (18th March, 2009), he quotes Vohs thus: “Money seems to have symbolic power as a social resource,” says Vohs. “It enables people to manipulate the social system to give them what they want, regardless of whether they are liked.” Put bluntly, it looks as if money is acting as a surrogate friend. Could that explain why some people focus on extrinsic aspirations at the expense of real social relationships?”

In the same article Buchanan quotes other psychologists who assert that there is such a thing as ‘money addiction’, which is apparently as powerful as addiction to nicotine, and more dangerous drugs.

Unfortunately like so many addictions money doesn’t necessarily bring you happiness, although being poor and hungry isn’t a good idea either.

Studies show that women especially delight in giving money away. Their brains light up in similar ways to when they eat chocolate. When forced to spend money on taxes however no such correlation can be found.

This may seem to have come a long way from the original topic of this post but has it? Clearly the whole notion of helping others make money is complex. If  making money is an addiction that leads to misery then should it even be permissible?

On the other hand if giving can make you happy shouldn’t I set an example and give this opportunity freely?

Anyway, what I’m proposing isn’t a direct cash hand out, and I’m not suggesting that some work wont be needed if people are to get the most from what I have in mind.

Hell it’s the weekend. I’ll shelve the decision for a few days. It’s not urgent anyway.

Wonderful and Awful: Giving = Happiness = Giving
Giving = Happiness = Giving. A survey of 30000 American households found that those who gave to charity were 43 percent more likely to say they were “very happy” about their lives than those who did not give.

Monique & Jason: Charitable Giving = Happiness & Prosperity
Charity brings happiness, happiness brings success. If you want to be successful, give give give. You can’t find any kind of service that won’t make you happier. If you increase your level of of charitable giving, you can increase your happiness.

Giving up the Economy for Lent
They tried happiness. They tried fashion. All worked with varying degrees of success. Both groups soon discovered the most consistent motivator was fear.

Giving Notice Now: The Wolf at the Door
Giving Notice Now. Buddhism advises people looking for happiness to live in the NOW. In this blog you’ll find a record of my attempts to do just that. Friday, April 3, 2009.

Happiness Through Giving
While previous studies have shown that having more money can increase , the researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard University wondered if the way people spent their money made any difference.

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