The Karma of Giving

In the past, I have shared a brief outline of the Five Keys to Business Success.  The “Five Keys” represent core characteristics we help business owners develop as they transition from product sellers (florist, jeweler, restaurateur, etc) and service providers (mechanic, doctor, carpenter, plumber, or appraiser) to owners of profitable, scalable companies.  These characteristics are 1) Living to serve, 2) Making a profit, 3) Owning a business (not a job), 4) Making time for the “business of business”, and 5) Managing systems, not people.

Some might call this entrepreneurial development.  We call it beating the odds, these odds:  1) 50% of businesses fail in the first three years, 2) 70% of businesses fail within ten years, and 3) even if a business survives, its owner will, on average, earn 18% less than they would performing the same service as an employee for someone else.  Learning and applying the Five Keys is the antidote to this dire prognosis.

Before a business owner can develop and apply the Five Keys, however, we ask them to forget about money, the product or service they provide, what the competition is doing, and all the business “techniques” they learned in books, seminars, or business school.  Instead, we ask them to consider two facts.  Fact one: As a business owner, your livelihood is ultimately determined by others - free-thinking individuals deciding how to best fulfill their wants and needs.  Fact two: Something indescribably special happens every time one of these free-thinking individuals chooses (trusts) your business to fulfill these wants or needs. 

Today I will discuss the unique, but often overlooked relationship that exists between a business, its customers, and community.  “Beating the odds” is not the result of a myopic contest to steal dollars from the competition.  In fact, the polar opposite is true - a successful business is formed from win-win relationships.  The level of one’s success is determined by how efficiently and effectively a business’s relationships increase the life-quality of its customers.  In other words, success results from the masterful application of the “Golden Rule.”

As a small business owner you are, perhaps, one of the last bastions of a true free-market (purely competitive) economy.  Your business is not a government entity - completely detached from those taxed/forced to pay its salary.  You are not a large corporation for whom consumers are colored boxes on a bar graph.  Your customers are your neighbors, friends, and family: free-thinking individuals with a variety of choices when it comes to meeting their needs and wants.  They choose how, when, where and, most importantly, WHO they buy from.  They decide which mechanic to hire, in which bank to deposit their paychecks, which hairstylist to frequent, which newspaper to read - and they are under no obligation to choose you. 

So, why does a customer choose one business over another?  Ask yourself: All mechanics have some basic ability to fix cars or they wouldn’t be mechanics. So, why do you drive past three other mechanics to arrive at YOUR mechanic?  All hair stylists share a basic level of knowledge, skill and ability.  So, why do you forsake all others to arrive in YOUR barber or stylist’s chair?  What about YOUR dentist, YOUR doctor, YOUR bank, YOUR insurance agent.  Why do you continually choose these businesses?  Consider this question carefully and you will discover that you are not just buying the product they provide you are buying the EXPERIENCE of obtaining the product from these specific businesses.  You return because the value (money, time, inconvenience) you exchange for this experience is worth the value the experience adds to your life. 
So, what is this experience and what does it mean for your business?  It means that the “stuff” you sell; car repair, banking, dentistry, etc, is where your product starts.  What your customers are really buying is the EXPERIENCE of purchasing that “stuff” from your business.  This “experience” is your real product - the totality of everything that comes into contact with the customer - everything.  When the quality of this experience falls short, your customer is dissatisfied (and may let everyone know it).  When its quality equals the value your customer trades for it, they are (merely) satisfied and will probably return.  If, however, the quality of this experience exceeds the value traded, your customer will not only return, they will become your biggest fan.

This is the conclusion of today’s article and an introduction to the first Key of Business Success.  Successful business owners are constantly evaluating and improving the experience of their customers.  They exist to improve the life-quality of their customers and their community.  In short: they “Live to Serve”.

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