6 Business tips I learnt from playing Sim City.

◦ Buy Low Sell High : Well this is the same strategy people use in stock market when they go long. In Sim City there’s multiple ways to make money and one such way is to buy goods at a lower price from other city and sell it at a higher price in your store. People who desperately need the items don’t mind paying extra for the goods.

◦ Don’t fall for the discount trap but use it when necessary : Initially when I started playing Sim City I would sell goods at a lower price but after playing for some time I realised that there would be buyers even at the higher price. When it comes to real life you could use discounts to get rid of excess inventory. For example, imagine you sell chocolates but the expiration date of some of the chocolates is nearing. In such a case you could offer a discount so that you end up cleaning your inventory. In place of one unit of profit you may end up getting 0.5 unit of profit per sale when you offer discount but that would be better than losing the entire investment due to expiry.

◦ Pride and Emotions can keep you away from profit : In my case I was around level 50 and I was president of the club. And Sim City has something called wars and when you win in a war you end up getting cash which could be used to further grow your city and also inventory and size of the store. But the members in my club weren’t active in wars and I was the sole player who was active and hence I couldn’t win wars. Result – zero cash. Had I let my ego and joined some other club where the members were active then I would be making more money than holding a high position in my club. The same happens in real life too, often we need to keep our ego aside if we need to grow our business. One example of it could be accepting friend requests. If you have a huge database of friends, you need not spend huge money on advertisements. A simple post on social media can generate sufficient engagement necessary to make decent income. However, there are lot of cons to it.

◦ Creating Passive Income is essential : When it comes to Sim City once you attain a level wherein the taxes generated is high you need not produce any goods because you could buy goods from other cities by paying the amount you generated from your taxes. The same applies to real life if you attain a position wherein your passive income is consistent and it can support your lifestyle you need not work again. The income generated via passive income could be reinvested to further compound your income.

◦ Restarting is easy if you are experienced : I lost my progress when I was around level 50 as I deleted the game without logging into social media or other options available. But I reinstalled the game and this time the time taken to reach a higher level was fractional to what it was when I first played the game. The reason being I knew the game in depth. The same applies to business, if you have an in-depth knowledge of your business or industry starting over isn’t that difficult.

◦ Have a backup : This point is extrapolated from the previous point. Having an insurance type of thing is quintessential. Little things like antivirus, secure cloud etc can come in handy to save your progress. In case of a mishap a perfect backup plan can save you.