Working makes you FEEL better - really!

Some times life is complicated but most of the time we just make it so. Isn't that the truth!

With all the new research being carried out on what makes us tick, often the real story is that old wisdom is GOOD wisdom. For example it seems that we are hard wired for hard work. Ground breaking research(?) has come up with these startling facts:

We get more satisfaction out of money we earn as opposed to money we're given.

Isn't that what the old adage "easy come, easy go" refers to — our tendency as humans to treat windfall, gift, or hand-me-down cash cavalierly, while savouring the fruits of our hard-earned dough?

Any one who is doing even the scantiest of reading will know that, for almost everything the psych doctors trumpet as the latest revelation in their fields, there's a saying that's already got it covered. One could be forgiven for thinking that the real purpose of the psycho-sciences is to put into fancy words and number what people have already learned about each other through the millennia of human interaction.

According to the Emory University study's authors, other research has shown that lottery winners are not happier a year after hitting the jackpot than they were when they were working for a living.

Maybe we need counselling for lottery winners. I don't know about you, but I think I could somehow maintain a happy outlook with an million dollars or three, if I did something worthwhile with the money…

Here is a suggestion from William Campbell Douglass II, MD, who writes one of the best "Medical Debunking newsletters on the net. He suggest that he would start his own mass-circulation publication devoted to promoting the proverbs, adages, maxims, and old wives' tales that tell us everything we really need to know about human nature — without "all the jargon and gobbledygook the pointy-heads use to make their points…"

So, even if we are built to work... maybe we need some help on the "Smart" part of that.

As I watch the custom of the cafe where I have enjoyed an early morning coffee for the last 4 years go down and down - we are on the third owner who really is struggling with the "science" of business - he keeps trying NEW coffee blends but "he doesn't drink coffee!" - I think this idea about "ready to take away, fresh orange juice" just might fix his business... and a variation might help you too! (Sadly I don't think my guy will listen - we will need to wait for owner number 4 who will get a bargain because "business is slow.")

With one simple idea, and a little bit of "elbow grease" The Dockside Cafe in Annapolis, Maryland will add nearly $20,000 to its sales: They make it extremely convenient for their customers to add a $3 item on to their purchases.

Each morning, the coffee shop turns a sack of oranges into about 18 cups of fresh-squeezed orange juice. (They used to do less, but they kept on selling out.)

They fill clear plastic cups with the bright orange juice, snap lids on them, and put them in a tray of ice right next to the cash register. Before they put the OJ out on the countertop, they hardly sold any. But now, about 18 people a day grab one of those cups. At $3 each, that's $54 extra a day - or an impressive $19,710 extra in sales a year - on an item that has a very high profit margin.

The moral of this story: Whether you're running a neighbourhood coffee shop or an online "store," make it easy for your customers to grab a little something extra on the way out. Those little sales will add up to big numbers fast.