The document provides principles for business, including focusing on building client relationships over transactions, not categorizing clients as "good" or "bad", recognizing that every interaction involves elements of sales, services and support, and prioritizing addressing the client's needs over being focused on solving problems. It also emphasizes the importance of reputation, cash flow, and saving for unexpected expenses.

1. Principles of Business*
Revised February 2011

2. Intro
In business as with life it’s important that one has a
strong foundation of proven principals from which to
help guide your decision making. The following are
some of those that I’ve found to be true.

3. Clients Not Customers

4. Clients Not Customers
Customers are people Clients are people you
who buy things from > have relationships with.
you.
Never approach any transaction as if it were the end goal. While
sales are crucial for any business’ survival in the short term,
growth in sales is most easily achieved in the long term through
repeat business and word of mouth recommendations. Build a
lasting and mutually beneficial client relationship is the way to
best achieve you both ends.

5. There’s no such thing as a bad customer...
(...or a good customer)

6. There’s no such thing as a bad client... or a good one
Many employees and business fall into the easy habit of dividing
their customers into “good customers” and “bad customers,”
with good customers being those perceived to see the value in
and advocate for the company and who spent a lot of money,
and bad customers being those who complain more than praise,
“waste” the company’s time, and who simply don’t spend a lot of
money. This insidious categorization of current customers leads
invariably to filtering new potential customers and ultimately with
both to missed opportunities.
>>

7. There’s no such thing as a bad client... or a good one
Regardless of the disdain such an attitude expresses towards
one’s current and potential customer base and the opportunities
they might have presented, the fact of the matter is that a so-
called bad customer will often be more forthright and revealing
about the company than an entitled good client. It should also be
realized that customers don’t waste time, rather employees fail
to seize upon and capitalize on opportunities which are available
in every single communication with a client. Finally, to name just
three failings of the good customer/bad customer concept, bad
customers have the potential to be the most under served
market available to any business, ready for innovation and
exploitation.

8. Everything in life is sales

9. Everything in life is sales
Whatever you do, whatever business you’re in you’re in sales. If
you’re not selling products then you’re selling services, and if
you’re selling neither then you should be selling yourself. From
car salesperson to trades person to office worker each out to be
engaged in selling the value their business and them as
employees offer.

10. Don’t wait to be asked to dance

11. Don’t wait to be asked to dance
Insecurity, complacency, ego, each plays a part in the reasons
why people fail to ask for the opportunity to perform, for the
sale. Far too many people approach business (and their lives)
like some high school crush, waiting desperately to be asked to
dance, waiting for someone else to do make the first move or to
do the hard work. Fortune favours the bold. You have to ask for
the opportunity to succeed, it’s rarely offered to you.

12. Three things in one isn’t the same as one thing

13. Three things in one isn’t the same as one thing
The sales value proposition always includes (in varying
percentages) three basic elements: products, services, and
support. Capitalizing upon opportunities within the sales cycle
means examining every interaction through the each of these
facets. For instance, realize and convey the value of the service
being provided to the client through the process of selling a
product as well as the support (through education or training)
that may also be included.

14. Address the person not the problem

15. Address the person not the problem
Employees tend to be become easily engrossed in their work. In
spite of their best intentions and greatest efforts to help a client,
it’s easy for an employee to fixate on the problem in front of
them rather than the person. What the employee fails to realize
in this situation is that while they are busy working on solving the
problem the client is left continuing to have their experience
unattended. It is often a shock for employees like this who
fixate on the problem and not the client experience first and
foremost to discover that a client may be dissatisfied in spite of
their problem being solved.

16. The customer isn’t always right...
...but so what?

17. The customer isn’t always right but so what?
What’s important isn’t whether a client is right or wrong but
rather that the client always believes they’re right. While you
may have all the facts on your side (always make absolutely sure
you have all the facts!) when addressing any disagreements
between a client and the company it’s vital to remember that the
goal is still customer satisfaction.
>>

18. The customer isn’t always right but so what?
Approach the situation openly making it clear to the client that
you are prepared to hear and address their concern. Listen for
and ask questions seeking out the root of the disagreement
(does it stem from an earlier misunderstanding or a lack of
knowledge?). Consider the situation and client carefully and
begin discussing a possible resolution, leading the customer
through an education of the policies and regulations governing
their situation along with possible courses of action. Later
review the causes of the problem to see if it might be avoided in
future.
>>

19. The customer isn’t always right but so what?
Remember throughout that being correct isn’t a moral high
ground and doesn’t serve any strategic value – it’s not a war it’s
another opportunity to solve a problem for a client and impress
them.

20. If it’s worth doing you almost certainly have
everything you need to start right now

21. If it’s worth doing you almost certainly have everything you need to start right now
Ideas like dreams often start as fantasies in the imagination. We
picture an outcome and want to get there. People picture
themselves surrounded by the trappings of success prior to
having earned it, while business blindly invest valuable time and
money into projects with guaranteed returns. In general people
are all to ready to spend money with the hopes of making it. But
spending money only requires money. Once spent that money
is gone.
>>

22. If it’s worth doing you almost certainly have everything you need to start right now
In almost every instance, whatever goal you have in mind, you
can almost always start immediately with what you have
already. Some call this method the “lean start-up.” I would
only point that in almost every case in history the greatest
innovations have always emerged from places of (and almost
certainly because of) resource scarcity. If this doesn’t sound
appealing one should ask themselves whether the fantasy is
really substantive of only about the trappings and toys?

23. The dog’s gotta want to run

24. If it’s worth doing you almost certainly have everything you need to start right now
A lot of people look at business through the baseball analogy of
trying to hit home runs. More appropriate perhaps is the image
of business as the Iditarod, the grueling unimaginably long dog
sled race across the far north. Survival let alone success is only
achieved when all dogs are pulling in the same direction carrying
the same weight of the sled forward, day after day.
>>

25. If it’s worth doing you almost certainly have everything you need to start right now
There are many philosophies and theories on management as
the art of motivating every employee to perform to their very
best. In spite of management’s best efforts there will always be
employees who more than being slowed or sidelined temporarily
with personal or professional issues, lack the inner motivation to
perform up to par. At the end of the day when assessing
teammates the only truly important factor to consider is whether
you believe that they possess a deep down bred-in drive to run.
They have to want to run.

26. When the cat’s away the mice will...
...eat through the walls and sh-- all over everything

27. When the cat’s away the mice will eat through the walls and sh-- all over everything
If you’ve had any success in your life it’s probably due in no
small part to being endowed with a strong sense of personal
responsibility and self-motivation. Counting on the same drive
in others, whether co-workers, employees, or other business is
foolish. Like common sense these are not traits shared by all.
Most people when given the opportunity will do the least, or
less. If you find yourself disappointed by another in this way and
you’ve not been checking up on them regularly realize that the
blame lies in you, blaming mice for their nature is simply a waste
of time.
(Note: this is not to say that a lack of performance is acceptable, only that it should
have been anticipated and managed appropriately.)

28. Social Media - social not included

29. Social Media - social not included
Social Media refers to a set of inanimate and impersonal
communications tools that in and of themselves offer a business
only potential but deliver nothing. Like any tools they require
certain skills to operate them. As relationship tools these skills
must be driven by a deep cultural value within the company to
eagerly reach out to and connect personally with other people
(current and potential clients). Social media tools are like the
telephone, they do nothing for you but when used correctly they
can be an invaluable.

30. You are your reputation

31. You are your reputation
Everything in business is built upon your reputation. Your
reputation is your trust. In trust you earn credit (over and above
the financial kind). In credit you may find grace and
understanding when you need it. Your reputation is your
survival, it’s the foundation of your success, and in the most dire
of times your reputation and your reputation alone may just be
your salvation. You’re nothing without it. Protect it above all
else.

32. Cash is king

33. Cash is king
Nothing beats cash. Credit isn’t cash as it can’t always be
counted on to be there and when used can be recalled at any
time. Positive cash flow is the life’s blood of any business.

34. Save for a rainy day

35. Save for a rainy day
No matter how good things seem there is no controlling external
events and market conditions. Healthy positive cash flow can
quickly turn negative. Expenses can suddenly out run income.
Credit can’t be relied upon to save the day (and even if it can it
often places the company in debt after the fact). The weather is
unpredictable but you can be certain never the less that one day
it’s going to rain. Always save for a rainy day.

36. Faking it rarely results in making it

37. Faking it rarely results in making it.
Promising more than you are able to deliver generally results in
only in lies by you, disappointment in you, and failure. Success
is owned and comes from within. You are it or you aren’t, not
claimed it hoping to become. Own your present success and
work humbly towards more.

38. It’s business and it’s personal
- get over it

39. It’s business and it’s personal, get over it.
As much as we might like to, and as much as most of us adopt
work/public personas different from our personal ones, there is
simply no way to shut off our feelings and separate the individual
from the job. It’s unavoidable that we have emotional responses
when confronted with the emotions of others, this is simply part
of the human condition. How you deal with this response is
what counts.

40. Skepticism is useful, pessimism is not.

41. Skepticism is useful. Pessimism is not.
Reviewing your thinking before taking action is a valuable and
healthy step. Embrace doubt as it provides an opportunity to
answer and erase it. Skepticism ask only to be reassured.
Pessimism asks no questions and states only failure. Pessimism
is never skeptical of its’ certainty.

42. It’s war. Win.

43. It’s war. Win.
Accepting that failure is an option is to make failure an option.
When you accept that there is no choice but to succeed you
accept that you must keep working until you do.