Repeat after me: “Money is not evil”.
Has anyone read that book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”? Yeah I haven’t either, but it’s got something to do with me in that I was born into wealth, and ever since being aware of it (high school pretty much) I’ve been more guilty of it than anything else, so much so that I’ve made it my life’s goal to use the position to do greater good for others.
I’m good at a lot of things, but making money isn’t one of them. I’ve spent my life creating not-for-profit communities. I’ve put my money and my soul into each and every one of them and never felt the need to get anything back but positive feedback (which is my preferred currency). I’ve frustrated the fuck out of business partners who have in the end had to leave the business because I just refused to make money.
I’ve had countless conversations with friends, about the disservice I’m doing to the industry. IE: If I am a professional graphic designer charging people $500 for a logo (or worse yet doing it for free which I do all the fucking time), then how the fuck has any other designer, especially ones starting out have a chance?
Getting on topic. We’ve just changed the pricing of all our goods in the ZEN GARAGE online shop in an attempt to get more sales (in an attempt to make more money). Where a T-Shirt cost $40 before, it’s now $39.95. I literally had friends tell me that if they had 2 T’s in front of them; one was $40 and the other $39.95 they’d buy the cheaper one, even if it’s only by 5 cents! This is killing me. I then did a fair bit of research into what others are doing (not that I really care), but hey even the God I met last week (Shepard Fairey/OBEY) does it with his goods, so if he does it then it’s OK if I do it too?!
I can’t feel good about the move, and if it does generate more sales then it’ll be bitter sweet, but the reality of it is that ZEN GARAGE is doing great, and has always done great since 2011, but we’ve never made a salary or any real money out of the business. We only make enough to pour it back in to make another run of stock, and even then we usually fail to re-stock as we don’t have enough money in the bank (which explains why our hoodies come out in summer most times haha!).
“Hallelujah!” is what my business partner Rob had to say; “I’ve been in the business for 6 years waiting for you to wake up!”. More profit means being able to have our staple range in stock all year round and it’ll also allow us to up the quality of our goods as well as design more new products and I’m excited about that.
Visit: https://shop.zengarage.com.au
