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I am like any other man. All I do is supply a demand.69
—Al Capone
There are a number of reasons that I have included “Business” as a chapter in this book—the number-one reason being that the majority of my life has centered around being an entrepreneur. The purpose of this chapter is to share some specific insight that I have acquired in business over my lifetime that I feel includes some of the key fundamentals of our business successes and business in general. I also want to show that business is not complicated. This is not a business book, but what I want to show is that not only is business simple, there are also some simple, inexpensive things you can do to make your business or service great that are often glossed over and not given enough attention.
I’ve heard it said that an entrepreneur is someone who will work 24 hours a day for themselves to avoid working one hour for someone else. 70
—Chris Guillebeau
Regardless of our occupation or situation in life, we’re all involved in business transactions. Whether you are selling yourself (for a job), art, books, crafts, your church, your knowledge, your services—all throughout our lives, we all are involved in sales in some fashion. We are also all consumers. We buy from these same people that I am talking about who are selling their wares. We buy and sell things—that’s the crux of business. It isn’t complicated. There are many books that seem to want to make business more complicated than it is or needs to be, but the bottom line is: business is simple. And the more simple you make it, the more successful you will be, and the happier you will be too. If you want to screw up your business, make it complicated. It will not only make your business much more difficult to run, but your personal life will suffer as well.
So what is the crux of business? Offering something to someone else who needs that something and is willing to pay you for it. That’s it. That’s business. Simplicity at its best. Obviously there are many other factors to making a business successful, but if you can fill a need and people will pay you for it, you’re in business! The mobster “Lucky” Luciano is quoted as saying, “If you have a lot of what people want and can’t get, then you can supply the demand and shovel in the dough.”71 Though I’m not condoning the kind of business Lucky was in, I do like that quote. That’s exactly what business is: offering what people want and can’t get, with great service.
Universities, books, authors, professors, business people—all have tried their best to make business much more complicated, and it scares people away. They love making it complicated. I have read many business books, or attempted to; after the first few chapters or even the first few pages, I couldn’t read anymore. Why? They were too complicated, too long, too hard, too much, too boring. One example is In Search of Excellence.72 It’s been said it’s one of the greatest business books of all time, but for me, It was too long, too complicated, and too boring. Maybe I should have tried to read more of the book, but after the first chapter, I couldn’t go any further. I realize that’s not a fair critique of a book, but for me, it was too much. I didn’t want business to be that complicated.
I have heard renowned author and speaker Larry Winget say, “If you can’t explain what you do for a living in one sentence, then you don’t know what you do for a living.” What do I do? I chop and sell candy. Larry would be proud of my brief summary! I rarely read business books now, but Larry Winget is one author I would recommend. He’s like the Mafia guys—in a good way—in that he is direct, in your face, keeps things simple, and offers sound advice. He is no-nonsense. No fluff. Just the basics. If you own a business, are thinking of starting one, or are going to college to study business, check out Larry’s books. Even if you aren’t going into business, you will be wiser after reading them.
In business, I have always believed that if you have just a marginal product or service, decent location and advertising, and exceptional customer service, your business will be successful. If you have a great product or service, decent location, and exceptional customer service, your business will boom. To give you an example, let’s say you have a hot-dog vending business on a busy street corner in a major city. As long as your hot dogs are good and you offer great customer service, your business should do well. Now let’s say you have the best hot dogs in the city and also offer fresh lobster sandwiches as well, and you give all your customers exceptional customer service—that is, you get to know their names, treat them like royalty on every visit, make a point of showing them how much you appreciate their business—and your customers will be lined up around the block.
There obviously are other aspects of business that are important, which I will discuss, but exceptional/extraordinary customer service will take you farther in business than anything else, as long as you have a product or service that people want. I have been in business as an entrepreneur for twenty-five years (and if you include night crawlers, caddying, and my other odd jobs, most of my life has centered around being an entrepreneur) and the bottom line is, if you can fill a need for someone else and offer them exceptional customer service, then you are on your way to becoming a successful entrepreneur or businessperson.
I will briefly discuss what I believe are the most important aspects of business. I don’t want to overcomplicate it. I will give you key fundamentals that have been critical to our business success. I am also in no way implying that you don’t need to go to college or read business books. Maybe In Search of Excellence will help you. Everything you learn about business will help. When I was first starting out in business, I read every business book I could get my hands on. But you don’t have to go to college or read hundreds of business books to be successful in business. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both dropped out of college and started businesses, and they seemed to do okay!
I personally don’t remember too much about my college courses in business (my minor), but I do remember what wasn’t said. There was virtually nothing said about customer service. Not one course on customer service. The most important aspect of any business—along with a good product or service—and there’s barely a mention of it in college business courses.
How can colleges overlook something so critical and vital to business success? If I owned a college and had a business school, it would be a requirement to have at least two semesters on customer service. Customer Service 101 and 102. Even if you spent the entire semester on different ways to say thank you. Nothing complicated—just the basics. Go through any fast-food drive-thru in the country, with the exception of chains like Starbucks, In-N-Out Burger, and a few others, and you will see why these courses would be mandatory.
I would make all business students (in my imaginary university) in the master’s program do a portion of their final thesis on customer service. It wouldn’t matter if you were studying accounting, economics, or any other field in business—you would be required to take courses in customer service. Everyone in a company should be part of and embrace the extraordinary customer service of the company. No one should be excluded.
Choose to deliver amazing service to your customers. You’ll stand out because they don’t get it anywhere else. 73
—Kevin Stirtz
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of customer service. It doesn’t matter what business or service you provide—exceptional customer service should be one of your top priorities. It’s your cheapest form of advertising. It’s the least expensive improvement you can make in your business, and yet most businesses seem oblivious to their poor customer service.
There is no easier way to lose a customer forever than by having poor customer service. Again, there has to be a demand for your goods or services, but that should be obvious. Great customer service is not so obvious, and that is why it is lacking in most businesses. Why is it so often overlooked? Maybe because it isn’t taught in school. It’s not something we learn in our educational system, not in college, and not in high school either. All students graduating from high school and college will at some point in their lives be involved in business—whether as an employer, employee, consumer—and yet we are not taught one of the most fundamental aspects of any business.
The best advertising in the whole world is a satisfied customer with a big mouth. And the worst advertising in the whole world is a dissatisfied customer with a big mouth. 74
—Larry Winget
If you own your own business, it’s your responsibility as an owner to ensure your employees are trained with exceptional customer-service skills—and more importantly, your management. It’s your responsibility to create a culture centered around great customer service. It costs virtually nothing to implement, and you can drastically change your business and ultimately your bottom line. Never put off extraordinary customer service for some time in the future. Do it today.
Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitor will. 75
—Kate Zebriskie
Basic customer service rules that we try to instill in our company are:
• Treat the customer like a king or queen.
• Treat each customer like he or she is the most important customer you have.
• Make customers feel special.
• Return customers’ phone calls promptly and respond to their e-mails promptly.
• Act excited when you talk to customers (you should be excited, because they are paying you).
• Follow through on all customer requests in a timely manner.
• Never overpromise, and always do what you say you are going to do.
• Put your best customer-service employees in positions in which they are dealing with customers directly.
• Customers’ requests should be top priority for everyone in the company.
• Always say thank you. It’s amazing to me how often employees of companies fail to do this.
If you only incorporate two things into a new customer-service program, my recommendation would be to treat the customer like a king or queen—like the most important customer you have—and say thank you. Those two simple things will do wonders for your business.
DON’T GO INTO BUSINESS JUST FOR THE MONEY
You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.76
—Oprah Winfrey
First, let me say that anyone who goes into business wants to make money. If the business doesn’t make money, you won’t be in business long. So making money is critical to all good businesses. But if you are looking into becoming an entrepreneur and your sole motivation for starting a business is for the money, you need to do something else, because the odds are good that it won’t work out. Sure, everyone wants to make money, and everyone thinks that owning a business is the ticket to wealth and happiness. It definitely can be—if you don’t do it “just for the money.”
Most people starting a new business think about opening a restaurant because they can’t come up with any other business ideas. You may know nothing about the restaurant business, but I think people who haven’t been in business are under the illusion that restaurants make a lot of money. We had the same illusion when we got into the frozen-yogurt business. It appeared, since there were so many customers in the stores, that the frozen-yogurt shops had to be making a killing. What most people don’t understand—including us, before we got in over our heads—is that the restaurant business is extremely competitive, requires long hours, is expensive to get into, and doesn’t bring in as much money as you might think (unless you own several or one “great” one). Most are open at least 360 days a year. Bottom line is, they require a ton of work.
Now, if you are an aspiring chef, love food and cooking, love and know the restaurant industry—then you are much more likely to be successful. The same is true for any business you get into. But you don’t have to have a passion for the business that you are getting into. I didn’t have a “passion” for chopping Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Who could have a passion for chopping peanut-butter cups? But I did have a passion for being an entrepreneur, a passion for freedom, a passion for making deals, and a passion for making my ideas a reality.
When first starting the business I own now with my two brothers, I had grandiose dreams and visions for its success, but I was never obsessed by the money. Anyone who goes into business wants to make money, and I would be lying if I said that wasn’t a motivating factor for me (since I always wanted to be rich). But my point is, you don’t want to focus exclusively on the money. I knew the money would come if I could make the business the best it could be every day. I never worried about the outcome—well, occasionally, but not often. I was too excited about the business.
I worked for an oil and gas company in the mid-eighties, and the owner used to tell me that during the oil boom, his feet hit the floor running when he got out of bed every morning. That’s how excited he was to go to his business each day. That’s the way I felt and still do.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of the creative effort. 77
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
That’s passion. That’s what will make you successful. That’s what they don’t and can’t teach you in business school. It’s something you feel, not something you learn. It’s when you just worked twelve to fifteen hours in your business and you get home and you can’t wait to get back the next day. It’s all you think and talk about. You have your heart and soul in it. That’s what will make you a successful entrepreneur. That’s what will cause the money to flow in. You don’t have to have a passion for the specific business you’re in, but if you have a passion for business, for being an entrepreneur, for the excitement, for building dreams, for the risk and reward, for being creative… then you might think about starting a business. But don’t do it “just for the money.” Don’t do anything “just for the money,” because in the end, the money won’t be there.
You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me. 78
—Steve Jobs
Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game. 79
—Donald Trump
A GOOD MONEY PERSON
If you are not an accountant, if you don’t like dealing with the small details, and yet you want to start your own business, hire the best “money person” you can afford. If you can’t afford it, you may need to go to the library or go to the Internet and read everything you can on managing your finances in your business. I would recommend finding someone to help, even part-time, if you are not good with the details and accounting. It’s critical to your success in business. You can have the greatest product or service in the world, but if you don’t manage the finances with care, your business will not only suffer but probably won’t survive. You need to know where every dollar is going. If you can’t do it yourself, hire someone that can.
My advice, without going into great detail, is to get counseling from an accountant and have that individual set you up with the financial and accounting tools that are necessary for your business. It’s not an area of expertise for me, and I was fortunate to have a brother who was an accountant and has taken care of all the minute details that are necessary to run a successful business. He does it very well. I recognize the importance of it, and that is why I am conveying this message to you.
FAILURE
There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.80
—Michael Gelb
I know you think I am going to say that in order to succeed, you must first experience failure. It’s business-book basics to say that you need to fail to succeed. Who hasn’t heard that? But I am here to tell you that I have never failed, unless I didn’t try. If I didn’t try, if I didn’t give it my best, and things didn’t work out, then I failed. As long as I gave something my full attention and effort, there was no failure. I always learned something from every experience—even if the only thing I learned was, “It’s time to close the doors because it’s not working!”
Of all strategies, to know when to quit may be the best.
—Chinese Proverb
Our adventure in the frozen-yogurt business might appear to have been a failure. At the time, it felt like failure. It felt like a disaster. It felt like rock bottom. But we worked hard, gave it our best shot, and it just didn’t work out. We didn’t fail. Frozen yogurt was on the way out in the early nineties, and so were we. Even though we lost money, we learned valuable business lessons. And the best thing? It catapulted us into our current business. Sometimes you have to find hidden gems in what appears to be a hopeless situation (see chapter 11, “The Beauty of Rock Bottom”). In this case, what appeared to be a failure led to something far greater.
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.81
—Thomas Edison
Never consider any business venture or anything you do in life a failure as long as you have given it your best effort, your best shot. If you don’t, then you can call it a failure. Obviously these are my thoughts on failure and my personal definition. If you want to consider what you have done as a failure, I certainly can’t stop you. But if you tried and gave it your best, I would be hesitant about labeling it a failure.
KEY EMPLOYEES
You’re not the only pebble on the beach.82
—Harry Braisted
There will always be employees in any business who believe the business couldn’t survive without them. They believe that if they were to leave, the business would fall apart the day they walked out the door. They are also a bit delusional.
In the 1997 movie Donnie Brasco, the character of Lefty Ruggiero, played by Al Pacino, says, “I’m a spoke on a wheel. And so was he, and so are you.”83 You could say that about just about anybody in a business. When a spoke falls off a wheel, what do you do? You replace it. It may take a while to find the perfect replacement—the best spoke you can get. No one in business likes to lose key people. At the time, it may seem devastating. And you may even have thoughts that the business can’t survive without this particular employee.
Throughout our business career, we have had key employees—I hate to say “key,” because they are all key—who have left for another job or various reasons, and also employees who we had to fire (not because of their job performance, but for other extenuating circumstances). And there was always a feeling of, What are we going to do now? Was this employee critical to our success? Can we survive without this person? And the answer to all of these questions is that not only did the business survive, but most of the time we replaced the employee with someone who was actually better—more skilled, more talented—and brought a new perspective to the business. The business “wheel” kept on turning, a little more efficiently and smoothly. Our worries were for naught.
You will find a replacement. The wheel will keep on turning just as well with the new spoke as it did with the old one. The next time you either lose a key employee or think you are that key employee, think again. You’re just another spoke on the wheel.
MULTITASKING
I’ve heard it said that multitasking means “screwing everything up simultaneously.” I would advise against it. Multitasking implies that you are trying to do several things at once. It sounds nice. People like to use the word. It sounds important to do several things at once. However, as a consequence, usually nothing is done very well.
How many times have you been on the phone with someone in business (or anywhere now) and while they are talking to you they are checking e-mails, texts, surfing the Web—giving you, at best, 50 percent of their attention. It’s annoying and rude. Not only are they “half there” for the conversation with you, but they are only “half there” for the e-mail or text they may be sending while talking to you. There’s no benefit to doing two things at once in a half-ass manner, and it’s not good business.
To do two things at once is to do neither. 84
—Publilius Syrus
Stop the multitasking and become great at one thing instead of mediocre at two or three. Next time you interview prospective employees for your company, don’t ask them if they can multitask—ask them what they are great at one thing at a time.
Doing one thing at a time is how one Zen Master defined the essence of Zen. Doing one thing at a time means to be total in what you do, to give it your complete attention. This is surrendered action—empowered action. 85
—Eckhart Tolle
PASSION
If we focus on our highest goal, our passion comes to us effortlessly.86
—Michael Ray
I write about passion because almost every business book or motivational speech given to high school and college graduates tells you to “follow your passion” in life. We have all heard this line. There is nothing wrong with this advice, as you do want to be inspired by whatever you may choose to do in your life. I too would encourage you to follow your passion—if you know what your passion truly is. But it can also be misleading.
One of my passions when I graduated from college was golf. But I knew I wasn’t going to be a professional golfer. I didn’t want to open or work in a golf shop. I liked “playing” golf. I know many avid golfers who have opened their own business selling golf equipment, working at a golf course in the pro shop, and they spent all their time working, leaving little time to actually play the game. I also knew of a few golf fanatics who had to close their golf shops.
This doesn’t just apply to golf. My point is that just because your passion may be golf, tennis, dancing, music, it doesn’t mean you have to work in that field. I personally knew that if I could build my own business, work for myself, create my own reality, that I would be able to actually “play” golf, or travel, or write, or do all the things that I love to do. That’s how I could follow my passions. Don’t go into the tennis business because you like playing tennis. Do it because that’s all you ever wanted to do—to work, play, and always be involved in tennis. Apply this to whatever career path you choose.
It is the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion. 87
—Rebecca West
Make sure you know what your passion really is before you just blindly pursue something because you believe it is your passion. As I said, chopping Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups was never my passion, but it gave me the freedom in my life to pursue and play in all my other passions. I became passionate about my business, and chopping peanut-butter cups just happened to be the cornerstone of the business.
My son, who plays college tennis, loves the game but is even more passionate about music. If he could find a job in the music industry, he would be in heaven. But jobs in the music industry are scarce, and selling guitars in a music store eight hours a day is not where his passion lies. So I always ask him what he feels is missing in the music industry today. What is needed? What is the biggest problem with music today? All of these questions get him thinking about a niche that isn’t being filled. It gets him thinking like an entrepreneur about something he is passionate about.
Maybe he will get a job working at a tennis club to keep some money coming in, but he can still focus on his highest goal of being involved in music someday and perhaps maybe even coming up with the next iTunes! By the way, when I asked him what he thought was one of the biggest problems with the music industry today, what was needed, he mentioned iTunes and its monopoly, lack of customer service, no one to talk to, and high prices. I’m not sure if he will be able to take on the behemoth Apple, but you never know. A tiny seed was planted.
When I started chopping Reese’s, it ignited a passion in me. I knew chopping peanut-butter cups wasn’t the perfect job or the perfect career path. I also knew it wasn’t my passion in life. But it kindled a blaze within me, and the world did seem to rearrange itself to bring me what I was seeking, and much faster than I expected. It ignited a passion in me. If you want to study quotes about passion, I would put this one by Srikumar Rao in the middle of your desk or on your refrigerator door and read it every day:
Here is an immutable truth for you to ponder: Passion does not exist in the job. It exists in you—and if you cannot ignite it within yourself right where you are now, you will never find it outside yourself. It is futile to search frantically for that perfect position. Paradoxically, when you discover the truth of this and begin to kindle the blaze within yourself, the external world rearranges itself to bring you what you seek and usually much faster than you expected.88
It sums up nicely what I have been trying to say: that the passion doesn’t exist in the job, it is in you regardless, of the career path you take. It’s up to you to ignite it.
THE MYTHICAL TOP
When you reach the top, keep climbing.89
—Chinese Proverb
In business and in life, there is no top rung. You will never reach the top. You can come close, but you will never reach it. It’s like seeking enlightenment—you don’t want to achieve it. You don’t want to get to the very top. Because then what would you do? You can retire, but deep down you’d know that you never reached the pinnacle of what you were trying to achieve. Again, you can come close, but our inherent need is for self-expression and self-expansion. In business, there is not an ultimate dollar figure that you’re trying to reach and then you can retire. Business, as in life, is all about getting better, creating new things, expanding, growing, not reaching some mythical top. You want to be better every day, every month, every year. That’s your real goal—not a dollar figure.
In his book The 50 Year Dash, Bob Greene wrote this about the top rung:
There is no top rung that makes you feel that the climb is finished. Wherever you think the finish line may be, you will be wrong. If the top rung really did feel like the top rung, it would be good and it would be bad. Good because it would finally settle you, let you exhale. Bad because it would do away with ambition.
And even knowing the top rung is illusory, you keep pulling yourself toward it. Because there is no alternative to that pursuit, or at least none that you are aware of, so you continue on your climb, not knowing what lies ahead.
The truth is that at 50, you become finally aware that there is no top rung to that ladder you’ve been on. If you’re waiting to reach the top rung, you can forget it, because it doesn’t exist.90
Not knowing what lies ahead is where the excitement is. When I first started TR Toppers, it was just as much fun and as exciting as it is today. Each year we tried to improve, think of new products, new ideas—anything we could do to grow the business. And we do the same thing today. It’s never been about a final destination, a final resting place. It’s always been about growth, getting better, creating, not just a final number and then we will be happy. It’s all about the process. The journey. The adventure.
Reaching a goal provides satisfaction, but it won’t last. The only thing that will last is your continuous climb up the ladder to ever greater heights. That’s where the excitement and fun is. We all need and want the climb. You won’t reach your top rung, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come close. Keep climbing.