The African Business Person 2

In my last post I wrote about thinking only of oneself. To be selfish all you have to do is to get up in the morning. Noone has to teach a little child to be selfish, they just cry and cry and cry until they get their own way, or mother wins. So how does this translate to how we run our businesses. If we are only thinking about our gain, can we really excel in business. My belief is no. The best way to succeed in business is to find a need or want that you can provide at a good price. This involves looking at others first and realizing that the customer is king. If we do this in reverse and think first of our needs we will never really succeed. Money is not a good motivator, we cannot look at money as our ultimate goal and expect to succeed. If we do this we will push products at customers that they do not want and do not need. How many people have stuff in their homes that they do not need and do not use but someone convinced them that they needed it. Now when it comes to business, the customer always gets the raw deal. You pay for something, you go home and find that it doesn’t work, a plumber does the job, but tomorrow you have to call him back because the pipe is leaking again, the mechanic replaces your worn brake pads with some less worn out pads from another car. People are quick to take your money, but want to keep the bulk of the money for themselves. Where they have charged you for parts, they use old ones and not new parts as they have promised. Quite often when you find exceptional service, one wonders whether there is a white man involved. I am not being too harsh, but somehow, our black brothers fall short on the delivery side of things. We are always thinking of cutting corners, cutting costs so we can make more, while the customer suffers. Where is the excellence in our businesses? Will we ever get there? I hope so. Econet wireless, has maintained their standards so there is hope for us.

If we want repeat business, we should put the customer first. It may not be the way that we are wired to act, but it is necessary to think first of the customer and then yourself.

So maybe if we get to the root of the problem and think of others and not ourselves, we can conduct business in an ethical way that will yield good results to both the customer and the business owner. Surely if we are selfish and greedy as people we will exhibit the same qualities in our businesses. I know that businesses are there to make profits, but there can be a win-win situation where we make reasonable profits that are not at the expense of the customer and without ripping the customer off. I do not understand some pricing strategies. Some companies would rather just charge you an arm and a leg and get your business just the once, instead of pricing themselves at a place where you purchase more and become a loyal customer.